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FROM flOO_ 



LADY WASHINGTON 



TO 



MRS. CLEVELAND 



BY 

LYDIA L. GORDON 




BOSTON 1889 
LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS 

10 MILK STREET NEXT " OLD SOUTH MEETING HOUSE " 

NEW YORK CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM 

71S AND 730 BROADWAY 



P 



.1 



Copyright, 1888, by Lee and Shepard. 



All Rights Reserved. 



FROM LADY WASHINGTON TO MRS. CLEVELAND. 



BOSTON 
S. J. Parkhill & Co. Printers 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

Lady Washington i 

Mrs. John Adams 37 

Mrs. Jefferson 61 

Mrs. Madison 87 

Mrs. Monroe 103 

Mrs. John Quincy Adams 117 

Mrs. Jackson 135 

Mrs. Van Buren 168 

Mrs. Harrison 185 

Mrs. Letitia Christian Tyler — Mrs. Julia Gardiner 

Tyler 203 

Mrs. Polk 217 

Mrs. Taylor 238 

"Mrs. Fillmore 264 

Mrs. Pierce 278 

Miss Lane 293 

Mrs. Lincoln 314 

Mrs. Johnson 344 

Mrs. Grant 357 

Mrs. Hayes 389 

Mrs. Garfield 408 

Mrs. Arthur 420 

Mrs. Cleveland . 431 



FROM 

LADY AVASHINGTON 

TO 

MRS. CLEVELAND. 



LADY WASHINGTON. 

One hundred and fifty-six years ago, in the month 
of May, was born a girl, to whom the god-parents 
gave the name of Martha. Her father, of Welsh 
descent, was a Virginia planter of the olden style, 
by the name of Dandridge. In a home of ease, 
wealth, and refinement, the girl grew and blossomed 
into womanhood. 

In those days there were no United States, only 
colonies, which belonged to England, and the gov- 
ernors of each held vice-regal courts. Dinwiddie 
bore sway in Williamsburg, and to make court life 
attractive and gay, gathered about him all the youth 
and beauty of the colony. 

Miss Dandridge, just turned sixteen, became a 
belle in her first season, and when it was over she 
was the pledged wife of Colonel Custis, a man of 
distinction and great wealth. Marriage soon followed. 
Three children came in quick succession. The first- 

I 



2 LADY WASHINGTON. 

born drooped and died. Grief told upon the frail, 
consumptive husband, and in a few short weeks he 
too sickened and died. He gave a large portion of 
his great wealth to his young wife and made her 
guardian of the two remaining children. 

The wife and mother thought love, hope, and hap- 
piness were buried with her dead. Yet time, youth, 
natural gayety, and sound common sense did their 
work, and a couple of years later we hear of the 
young widow of Colonel Custis, visiting about the 
county seats and entertaining in her own home. 
She was the guest of Mr. Chamberlayne when she 
first met Washinsfton. 

Every American is familiar with George Washing- 
ton as the mischievous boy, as the wise general, as 
the dignified president of these United States, yet, 
few associate his name with that of a wooing lover — 
his heart always bare to Cupid's darts. In school- 
boy days, before he had turned fifteen, he was madly 
in love with a girl older than himself. His school- 
books were scribbled over with doggerel sonnets — 
love-sick rhymes — badly written and worse spelled, 
in which he addresses her as the '* Lowland Beauty" 
— the only claim she has to be mentioned in history. 
Pardon ! she was the mother of Light Horse Harry 
and the grandmother of Robert Edward Lee, — the 
great general of the Confederate army of the Rebellion. 

When the people of the North were mad with 



LADY WASHINGTON. 3 

passion, — could hardly be touched by the irons of 
Jefferson Davis, — there was always a kindly feeling 
towards Lee, who would have foreborne, pleaded, 
done what he thought man might do with unclouded 
honor to save the Union ; yet when his state cast 
off her allegiance, feeling that he could not draw his 
sword against her, against children, relatives, home, 
after days and nights of struggle, with tears stream- 
ing down his cheeks, he cast off his. 

All through the war, there was a thrill of admira- 
tion for the man who maintained his cause so 
bravely against such bitter odds. 

Amid the exultation at Appomattox, there were 
pity and respect for the Hero of the Confederacy. 
Following that event, he wrote a friend : " I am 
looking for some little, quiet house in the woods, 
where I can procure shelter and my daily bread." 

To his honor be it spoken, he took the compara- 
tively humble office of president of a small college, 
taught loyalty, and charged Southern mothers not 
to bring up their sons " in hostility to the govern- 
ment of the United States." An English nobleman, 
who would have been glad to have seen the Ameri- 
can Union in ruins, so misunderstood the noble fibre 
of the man as to come forward and proffer a mansion 
and large estate on English soil, as a gift. 

To-day, we can but mourn the death and revere 
the memory of one so great, who has jDassed into 



4 LADY WASHINGTON. 

history shorn of military rank, won at West Point, 
and military glory, won upon the field. 

His grandmother probably looked upon Washing- 
ton as a foolish stripling and laughed at his callow 
love. 

Even after his luggage was on board ship, the boy 
had been thwarted by his mother in his project of 
entering the English navy, and now that the love 
which had been the consolation of his disappointed 
ambition could gain no hold upon the heart of the 
girl, he went on writing bad verses, thinking life 
had lost its zest, and that he was very unhappy. 

The boy lover closes a letter to a school friend to 
whom he has confided his woes, by saying : " Were 
I to live retired from young women, I might in some 
measure alleviate my sorrows, by burying that chaste 
and troublesome passion in the grave of oblivion." 

He left school, and went to Mount Vernon, the 
home of his half-brother, Laurence, with whom he 
was an especial favorite. 

Laurence had been sent to England in early youth, 
and had had the advantages of a thorough educa- 
tion. On his return, he had married Anne Fair- 
fax, which brought George into close intimacy with 
the whole Fairfax family, who ranked high in the 
social scale both in England and America. Their 
county seat, Belvoir, was in the neighborhood of 
Mount Vernon. 



LADY WASHINGTON. 5 

George William Fairfax had just brought from the 
mother country a bride, and with her came a sister 
who soon shook the constancy of Washington for 
his "Lowland Beauty." He writes to a certain 
" Dear Sally " of a young and agreeable lady, who 
helps him to pass his time pleasantly, but makes 
him rather uneasy, as she revives a very " trouble- 
some passion." 

Lord Fairfax, the head of the house, was a man 
of sixty years — made shy and eccentric, an exile 
from England, by an unfortunate love affair in early 
life. 

The boy's bold riding and enthusiastic ardor for 
field sports attracted the recluse, whose chief de- 
light was in fox-hunting, and he made him his 
chosen companion. He possessed broad tracts of 
land beyond the Blue Ridge, where in time he meant 
to locate and build a manor house. 

Observing at Mount Vernon, that Washington 
practised surveying with care and accuracy, he 
proposed that he should cross the mountains, sur- 
vey his land, and mark its boundaries. 

One month from his sixteenth birthday, Washing- 
ton assumed this responsible position. The life in 
the woods just suited the high spirits of the active 
boy and soon repaired the damages done to his 
heart. 

To a school friend, he wrote in great glee, " I 



6 LADY WASHINGTON. 

have not slept in a bed more than three or four 
nights this summer. After walking all clay, I have 
lain down at night upon a little straw or fodder, or 
a bearskin, with man, wife, and children, like dogs 
and cats — happy is he who gets the berth nearest 
the fire." 

A year later he attracted the attention of govern- 
ment officers and was appointed public surveyor ; 
upon the records of Culpeper county, may be read 
that " thereupon he took the usual oaths to His 
Majesty's 'person and government, and took and 
subscribed the abjuration oath and then the oath 
of surveyor, according to law." 

The greater part of the year was spent beyond 
the Alleghanies, and the boy became a man, skilled 
in woodcraft, learned in the red men's way, and the 
foundation of his future greatness was laid. 

Laurence, his brother, the master of Mount Ver- 
non, was in failing health ; sunnier climes were 
ordered, and our Washington was his companion 
and nurse to Barbadoes. Here he had the small- 
pox in the natural way, and, for a time, was very ill. 

The change and climate were of no benefit to 
Laurence, and it was suggested that he should try 
Bermuda. George went home to bring his wife to 
make the voyage with him. 

Hope, however, died out of the sick man's bosom, 
and such a longing for home, to die at home, came 



LADY WASHINGTON. / 

over him, that he took the next vessel and reached 
there soon after his brother. Consumption pavgcl 
the way, and before the summer ended, death came 
to end his sufferings and bear him to the unknown 
world. 

Upon the death of his only child, George, by his 
will, became the master of Mount Vernon, which, 
added to the estate he had inherited from his father 
on the banks of the Rappahannock, made him, at 
twenty, one of the wealthiest of planters. 

The French began at the North to build a chain 
of forts ; one in the Ohio region roused the ire of 
the English ; they denied the claims of the French, 
and meant to resist them. 

When Governor Dinwiddle was seeking an agent 
to interview the commandant, and remonstrate 
against the building of forts, Washington, just 
twenty-one, offered his services to tread, in mid- 
winter, the trackless forest, beset with unfriendly 
savages. He performed his task with the skill of a 
veteran. Though he only brought back the ambigu- 
ous answer of the polite, wily Frenchman, his mili- 
tary eye had noted much that it was well for the 
English governor to know. 

Troops were called out, a regiment formed, and 
the command given to Washington, with title of 
lieutenant-colonel. An advance was made, but as 
the French and Indians had taken the field with 



8 LADY WASHINGTON. 

greatly superior numbers, the attempt was a failure, 
and, for the time, abandoned. 

Then followed more stirring times ; Braddock 
came from England with two regiments to do more 
than remonstrate against fort-building south of Lake 
Erie. He heard the praises of the young colonel 
who had been at the French forts, and invited him 
to headquarters. Washington eagerly obeyed the 
summons. 

There had been a distinction made between the 
pay and rank of a provincial officer and one who 
held a commission from the king. Washington, 
having too much self-respect to submit to insult or 
injustice, had resigned and retired to Mount Vernon. 

To obviate the difficulty, Braddock invited him to 
join his military family as aide-de-camp. His mili- 
tary ardor being aroused to fight under one of the 
most skilled generals of the British army, he gladly 
accepted and joined the troops bound for the Monon- 
gahela. 

Used only to militia troops, his eyes kindled with 
delight at the brilliant display of the perfectly 
drilled and finely equipped soldiers, under their 
martinet commander. 

As the march went on, the young aide ventured to 
make a suggestion to the officer of His Grace the 
King. It was rejected, if not scorned. 

An Englishman can march, fire, fight, if it be done 



LADY WASHINGTON. 9 

according to the military rule in which he has been 
drilled — none better — can even fight after he has 
been whipped, too obtuse to find it out ; but there is 
in him no versatility of talent to adapt himself to 
any peculiar tactics of his foe. Now he has to deal 
with skulking savages, but " regulars " must stand in 
squads, and shoot by rule. Screen themselves by 
trees ! Heaven forbid ! better die, and die they did. 
Braddock, after having five horses killed under him, 
was mortally wounded. Only four officers alive and 
unvvounded of the eighty-six who had marched so 
gallantly forth ! 

Now that the battle is fought and lost, our young- 
provincial and the despised Virginia Rangers come 
to the front and bear away the dying commander 
and lead the shattered remnant to a place of 
safety. 

The English chaplain being wounded, Washington 
read the burial service over the brave officer he had 
so admired, and laid him in a grave in the forest. 

There was one man at least in the land, who was 
not surprised by Braddock's defeat. Franklin had 
been in England and knew Englishmen. When 
the consequential general came, he had assisted in 
his equipment, and given some advice as to Indian 
ambuscades. The way it was taken — the general's 
confident smile at his ignorance of the skill of the 
*' King's regulars " in fighting savages, told him that 



lO LADY WASHINGTON. 

the man was going to his ruin, and the fort would 
not be taken. 

Money was raised in Philadelphia for fireworks 
to celebrate the victory. Franklin declined giving, 
on the ground that there would be no victory to 
celebrate. 

The story of the defeat went to England, where it 
was told, that the provincial aide-de-camp had said 
that the whistling of the bullets was like music in 
his ears, and so earned the title of " braggadocio," 
years before he was known as the arch-rebel of 
America. George II. sneeringly remarked " that if 
he had heard more, he would not have thought so." 
In after years, Washington said if the words were 
his, they were spoken when he was very young. 

At twenty-four he went to Boston, to confer with 
the military authorities on the vexed subject of 
rank. On his return he tarried in New York, and 
there he came again in contact with troublesome 
"young women." As in his boy days, his heart 
settled upon the fairest and brightest, but "faint 
heart ne'er won fair lady." While our modest 
Washington was dallying about, afraid to woo too 
boldly, his brother-in-arms, the bolder Morris, talked 
business, and the fair Mary Philipse, mistress of 
broad acres on the Hudson, was won. 

Active service again healed the wounds of love. 
For the fourth time Washington was ordered to 



LADY WASHINGTON. I I 

Fort Du Quesne, to lead Virginia troops to do what 
the skilled Braddock had failed to do. 

This time the lion of England devoured the lilies 
of France, and the red-cross banner of St. George 
waved on the banks of the Monongahela. 

Washington was now famous, his name familiar 
in all the colonies. Again, one of those "young 
women " crossed his path. He was making one of 
his military trips on horseback and was ferried over 
the Pamunkey to the estate of Mr. Charaberlayne. 
The hospitable owner met him and urged a visit to 
the house. Washington, without that strict regard 
to truth which has so immortalized him, declined, on 
the ground that his military business with the gov- 
ernor was too urgent for delay. His would-be host 
must have known something of his fondness for 
women, for he descanted upon the guests gathered 
at the house, among whom was a widow, young, rich, 
and charming. Washington, never proof against 
such inducements, accepted for dinner, with the 
proviso that he should leave as soon as it was over, 
and ride through the night, that he may keep his 
promise of meeting the governor at dawn. 

The young woman did her work upon his heart, 
and 'Move ruled the hour." This time he struck a 
responsive chord. At the appointed time, the faith- 
ful servant brought round his horse, was met by 
the smiling host, and ordered to stable him for the 



12 LADY WASHINGTON. 

night. Had the Heavens fallen.? — was his exact 
and punctual master to play the governor false ? 

The next day, the sun was high before Washing- 
ton spurred his way to Williamsburg. He did his 
business with despatch and returned to visit the 
widow in her home, called the White House, a name 
which the nation has fondly preserved in the presi- 
dential mansion. An engagement was formed, which 
ended in marriage, on Twelfth Night, 1759, at St. 
Peter's church — in the presence of the bride's 
father, children, and a host of distinguished guests. 

The bridegroom was dressed in a red velvet coat 
and embroidered waistcoat ; the bride, in rich white 
silk. 

It was a gay party that returned to the White 
House to eat the marriage feast, and toast the pair 
in champagne and rich wines, that were served with- 
out stint. 

All the servants on the entire estate were given a 
holiday, and in holiday attire joined in the merry- 
making. 

Mr. and Mrs. Washington danced the minuet, and 
the house rang with laughter, merriment, music, and 
dancing. 

All the house servants were given a slice of cake 
and a piece of money. 

Washington rose early and ate with his bride in 
her chamber, before the ^ruests had risen. 



LADY WASHINGTON. I 3 

The portrait of Mrs. Washington, painted by 
VVoolaston, in the days of her widowhood, presents 
a woman rather below the middle size, but extremely 
well -shaped, with an animated face, dark chestnut 
hair, and hazel eyes — not a beauty, but very attrac- 
tive. She is said to have had those frank, engaging 
manners so captivating in Southern women. 

Washington was a member of the House of Bur- 
gesses, and for three months lived in the home of 
his wife. The session over, Mrs. Washington and 
her two children, a boy of six and a girl of three, 
were driven to Mount Vernon. 

Washington wrote his English relatives that now 
he had an " agreeable partner he should settle down 
to domestic life." Life was like that of a gentle- 
man's country life in England, — driving, visiting, 
fox-hunting, shooting, boating, and agricultural pur- 
suits, filled up a round of pleasures. Mrs. Wash- 
ington had a chariot with four horses, and black 
postilions in white and scarlet livery ; if her husband 
joined her, it was on horseback, only on Sundays 
did he use a carriage. 

Upon this almost holiday life began to be heard 
the low mutterings of a coming storm. Upon the 
arrival of the Stamp Act in Massachusetts, the 
tempest broke and out of it came the whirlwind. 
England, astonished and alarmed, repealed, and 
things took on a brighter aspect, but with the 



14 LADY WASHINGTON. 

shortsightedness of George III., and with England's 
generosity, she declared her right to levy taxes at 
will, and again the parted clouds rolled together. 
Washington carefully scanned the political horizon, 
and kindled at the oppression of the mother country. 

While he was sitting at session in Williamsburg, 
1773, Mrs. Washington wrote him of the alarm- 
ing illness of her daughter. This girl, just budding 
into womanhood, was very beautiful, — a brunette of 
so dark a type that she went by the name of the 
"dark lady." She inherited her father's face, and a 
delicacy of constitution which had always been a 
cause of great anxiety. 

The frail, lovely girl had been an especial favorite 
with her stepfather, and she returned his fondness 
with all the warmth of a young girl's heart, — at her 
death giving him her great fortune. 

Hearing of her illness, Washington hastened to 
her side, threw himself on his knees and prayed : 
before the prayer had ended, her spirit had passed 
away. 

For a time, Washington, to console his wife, re- 
mained at home, though he had made an engage- 
ment to go into the western country with Lord 
Dunmore. 

The only differences between Washington and his 
wife, which have come down to us, were on the sub- 
ject of managing the children. As they were hers, 



LADY WASHINGTON. I 5 

not his, and independent of him, he felt much deli- 
cacy in interfering with the discipline. 

The girl had been gentle and obedient, not spoiled 
by indulgence and petting, but with the boy it was 
different. 

Washington would often say he could govern men, 
but not boys. Two years before Miss Martha's 
death, Master John Parke had been sent to Annap- 
olis, to study with an Episcopal clergyman. 

When Washington returned from one of his mili- 
tary trips, he found that arrangements were made, 
with the mother's consent, for the boy to go abroad, 
taking his teacher for a travelling companion. He 
waJ5 resolute in opposing the scheme. The boy's ed- 
ucation was very imperfect ; he had been rather 
given to fox-hunting and other outdoor sports, and 
now he was approaching manhood. Another con- 
sideration was the expense. The services of the 
reverend gentleman would be a heavy charge, — 
would anticipate half his income, wrote his step- 
father. There was much controversy over it; but 
where duty was concerned, Washington could be very 
firm, even with his wife. The journey was postponed, 
if not abandoned. 

After the burial of his sister, the young gentle- 
man presented a new and far more serious difficulty 
for the consideration of his family. He has asked 
Eleanor Calvert to be his wife, and she has promised 



1 6 LADY WASHINGTON. 

that she will. The youth of eighteen was ready to re- 
deem his pledge to this young lady of fifteen. His 
mother had heard the love-tale earlier, and had not 
been shocked. Mr. Calvert had been duly asked for 
his daughter, and had given his consent. Washing- 
ton was in dismay, — rather wished the boy were 
travelling in Europe. 

Miss Nelly came from the best of blue blood, was 
the daughter of Benedict Calvert, granddaughter of 
Lord Baltimore. She was very pretty, and very 
charming; no objection to the girl. 

Washington thought it unnecessary for a gentle- 
man to be a scholar, but this boy was deficient in 
arithmetic, — in the common branches of learmng. 
It was rather delicate business for him to present 
objections to Mr. Calvert, but the affair must be 
postponed. It was finally arranged that the young 
gentleman should go to King's College, New York, 
and remain two years ; then the marriage should take 
place. Washington accompanied him there, and made 
all necessary arrangements. 

John Parke Custis did not love study nor books — • 
was homesick ; visions of pretty Nelly Calvert floated 
before his eyes, and he spent most of his time scrib- 
bling to her. 

In a few months he was at home again, urging an 
immediate marriage. 

In consideration of the boy's inclination, the de- 



LADY WASHINGTON. \J 

sire of his mother and the consent of his friends, 
Washington felt that it was not wise, at the last, 
to push his opposition too far, and submitted to 
necessity. 

The children were married at Mt. Airy, Maryland, 
and the bride was brought to Mount Vernon. 

The mutternigs of the rising storm grew louder 
and louder. Long before, the English government 
had sown the dragon's teeth, and had kept them well 
watered ; now the time of harvest was setting: in. 

Boston had risen in her might, made tea in Mas- 
sachusetts Bay, thus defying the power of Great 
Britain. George the Third, in almost crazy fury, 
determined to mete out due punishment to the 
rebels, — grass should grow in the busy streets of 
Boston. 

A new governor was sent, with two regiments of 
soldiers, to do the royal will and crush the commerce 
of the rebels. 

Before, there had been no union anions; the colo- 
nies, but the oppression of England and the resist- 
ance of Boston roused the spirit of the people, and, 
at the suggestion of Eranklin, a general Congress 
met at Philadelphia, of which body, Washington was 
a member. 

Little was done, and times grew darker, and men 
more sober, until the story of Lexington and Con- 
cord was told, when it was determined that the little 



l8 LADY WASHINGTON. 

band defying the British Regulars around Boston 
should be the nucleus of an army to oppose Great 
Britain. 

Washington was unanimously chosen commander- 
in-chief. Touching was the letter he wrote his wife, 
begging her to summon all her fortitude, and to pass 
her time as agreeably as possible ; yet he was not 
thinking it more than a summer's campaign. Seven 
long years of trial and anxiety followed, and Wash- 
ington saw Mount Vernon but once. 

In July he took command of the army beneath an 
elm in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In November, he 
invited Mrs. Washington to join him, at the same 
time ordering his agent to keep up the hospitalities 
of his house. *' Let no one go away hungry." Mrs. 
Washington came in her own chariot drawn by four 
horses, with black postilions in white and scarlet liv- 
ery. Her coming brightened the dark days for him 
and for the army. That winter, Washington made a 
house in Cambridge historic, which Longfellow has 
since made classic. 

On New Year's Day, 1776, the Union flag of thir- 
teen stripes was hoisted for the first time '' in com- 
pliment to the United Colonies," and there were 
great festivities held in the general's quarters. 

It had been the custom at Mount Vernon to cele- 
brate Twelfth Night — the anniversary of the wed- 
ding. Mrs. Washington was reluctant to omit its 



LADY WASHINGTON. I9 

observance, and proposed giving* a party at head- 
quarters. Washington objected — thought it un- 
seemly. His wife was never the man of the house, 
but had very coaxing ways, and when she had a per- 
sonal whim or fancy to gratify, she was very sure he 
could not hold out against her. Twelfth Night was 
celebrated with great elegance, and there are tradi- 
tional memories of other entertainments, which were 
equally fine. 

One bright, sunny morning in March, His Majes- 
ty's officers, cooped in Boston, opened their eyes 
very wide, — the view was not exactly exhilarating. 
Heights which commanded the city and its harbor 
were covered with works. 

Thinking there must be genii in the American 
army and they were rubbing Aladdin's wonderful 
lamp, they thought it the better part of valor to sail 
away, warning Washington that they would burn 
the city if he fired a shot. They went to Halifax 
to recuperate their spirits, after being outwitted. 
Washington, with his family and army, removed to 
New York. 

The Americans had won the first point in the 
game, and the commander-in-chief was waiting for 
the second deal. 

"When I first took command of the army," he 
said, " I abhorred the idea of independence ; but now 
I am fully convinced that nothing else will save us." 



20 LADY WASHINGTON. 

There were many cases of small-pox among the 
troops, and Washington felt great anxiety, lest his 
wife might take the disease. He urged that she 
should submit to inoculation. At this very time, 
Jenner knew the cow-pox was the better remedy, but 
he had not given his discoveries to the world. There 
was a violent prejudice against inoculation. So per- 
secuted was Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, that she 
repented ever pouring her Turkish knowledge into 
English ears. Mrs. Washington shared this preju- 
dice, but at Philadelphia, on her way to Mount Ver- 
non, she submitted to her husband's entreaties, and 
the result was satisfactory. 

The dramatic event of 1776 was the Declaration 
of Independence. A unanimous vote of the thirteen 
colonies was taken in its favor just after the hour of 
noon, Fourth of July. The populace knew this day 
was to decide the great event. From early morning 
the old bellman had been in the belfry, having sta- 
tioned a boy below to give the signal. The hours 
went by, and the old man began to lose hope. 
" Ah ! " he groaned, " they will never do it. They 
dare not do it ! " Just then the boy clapped, threw 
up his hat and shouted, *'Ring, bellman, ring!" 
For two hours the man did ring, and the joyous peal 
gave notice that the Declaration of Independence 
was adopted, and rang a knell that England's author- 
ity over the colonies was over. 



LADY WASHINGTON. 21 

By a curious chance, upon the fillets of the bell, 
imported from England years before, are the words : 
" Proclaim liberty through-out all the land, unto all 
the inhabitants thereof." When the news reached 
New York, Washington commanded the Declaration 
to be read at the head of each brigade. 

The second winter was spent at Morristown, and 
again Mrs. Washington and wives of the officers 
came to headquarters, but we hear of no parties or 
any gayety. Winter set in early and was uncom- 
monly severe. The troops, hutted on the heights, 
without blankets, were for weeks on half rations, — 
sometimes without bread or meat. The presence of 
ladies in camp, intent on charity and deeds of kind- 
ness, did much to dispel the gloom, and the blessings 
of thousands followed them, when the season was over. 

It was in this winter of almost actual starvation^ 
that Mrs. Philipse, the mother of Miss Mary of " Lang 
Syne," complained by letter to Washington, that his 
troops had stolen her cows, and the family had to do 
without milk. He courteously replied, " Far be it 
from me to add to the distress of a lady who, I am 
but too sensible, must already have suffered much 
uneasiness, if not inconvenience, on account of Col- 
onel Philipse's absence ; " assuring her that cows 
should be sent her, but she must be on honor not to 
keep more than was necessary for the private use of 
her family. 



22 LADY WASHINGTON. 

At one time, Washington's headquarters were in 
the house where he had once tried to summon cour- 
age to whisper a love tale to its fair mistress. 

How widely had the paths of the two diverged ! 
Major Morris and his lady were quartered among the 
Royalists. 

Times were hard for the patriots, but now and 
then Washington would do some daring deed. One 
Christmas night, he burst upon a card-playing, wine- 
drinking party, and accomplished such brilliant re- 
sults that the effect upon the country was electrical. 
Early in the new year, he swept around Princeton. 
When Cornwallis thought he heard thunder, an 
officer said, " To arms, general ! Washington has 
outgeneraled us. Let us fly to the rescue of Prince- 
ton ? " The mischief was done and the rebel chief 
beyond pursuit. As he was so elusive, Lord Dun- 
more, his old companion, planned to capture his wife 
and lay his estate in ruins. The Virginia militia 
rushed to arms, and the scheme failed. 

In February, 1778, Mrs. Washington joined her 
husband at Valley Forge. She wrote her daughter- 
in-law : " The general's apartments are very small ; 
he has had a log cabin built for a dining-room, which 
has made our quarters much more tolerable than 
they were at first." Sometimes the only food was 
bacon and greens served on tin dishes. Dinners 
were conducted with as much ceremony as if turtle 



LADY WASHINGTON. 23 

soups, canvas-back ducks, and terrapin were served 
on silver plate and porcelain. 

Once on inviting two ladies to dine at headquarters, 
Washington playfully wrote the bill of fare, lest imag- 
ination might stimulate their appetites — adding how- 
ever that when his cook wishes to cut a figure which 
he will do in honor of lady guests, he tacks a beef- 
steak pie and a dish of crabs to the mcim, all to be 
served on " tin plates turned to iron, but not by 
polishing." 

Late one October night, the family at Mount Ver- 
non were surprised by the return of the master. 
The visit was a hurried and busy one. It was the 
first time he had seen the grandchildren of his wife, 
four in number. He was on his way to join Lafay- 
ette and confront Cornwallis at Yorktown. The sur- 
render was the next great act in the drama, and very 
imposing it was. The French provided the music. 
His Majesty's troops, compelled to file by their con- 
querors with cased colors, were sullen and angry, and 
threw down their arms with such force that the 
greater part were ruined. To the grief of his mother, 
the stepson of Washington followed him to Yorktown 
as aide-de-camp. Every day a courier was sent from 
headquarters, but when he carried the glad tidings of 
surrender, he carried dismay to the heart of the 
mother ; her only son was lying ill of camp fever. 
She and the young wife hurried to his side — the 



24 LADY WASHINGTON. 

coachman was bidden not to spare horses that day. 
They came, — thank God, he was alive ! — but they 
could only speak a farewell and he was gone, struck 
down in the prime of early manhood — just twenty- 
eight. 

Washington was thought to be many miles away, 
but as the two women stood bending over their dead, 
he walked into the room. He was ardently attached 
to the young man, and at the sight of his dead face, 
threw himself upon a sofa and sobbed like a woman. 

To console his wife, he adopted the two younger 
children, Eleanor Custis and George Washington 
Parke Custis, as his own. 

Their mother was reluctant, but as the doors of 
Mount Vernon were to be open to herself and the 
older children, when it suited her to be there, she 
yielded consent. 

A swift horseman sent from camp reached .Phila- 
delphia at two in the morning. Watchmen tore 
through the streets shouting, *' Past two o'clock and 
Cornwallis is taken." Lights flashed from the win- 
dows, people half dressed thronged the streets. 
They fell into each other's arms ; could it be true ? 
One man died of joy. The old bellman hurried to 
the steeple, the militia to their cannons, and the 
boys kindled bonfires. The horseman sped on as 
if he were on the wings of the wind. Every town 
and hamlet in the land had its celebration. 



LADY WASHINGTON. 25 

Old Lord Fairfax, who had remained a stanch 
Royalist, said to his servant, " Turn me to the wall, 
John ; it is time for me to die." 

The news crossed the ocean. Lord North re- 
ceived it as if he were shot by a pistol, threw up 
his arms, exclaiming: '* Oh God ! it is all over." 

Washington, with his wife, was at Newberg, ready 
for a new campaign ; but British statesmen felt as 
Lord North, that all was over and peace must be 
granted. The treaty was signed at Paris and read at 
the head of the brigades of the American army, on 
the nineteenth of April, a day destined to be memor- 
able in the annals of the country. The army was 
not disbanded until the English and Hessians had 
sailed for home, which took place in November. In 
December, Washington resigned his commission at 
Annapolis. Mrs. Washington journeyed from Mount 
Vernon to meet him, and Cono'ress o:ave a dinner 
and a ball in their honor. On Christmas Eve, the 
proud and happy wife returned to Mount Vernon in 
company with its master. More than five years 
were spent in private life ; she dispensed the 
boundless hospitalities of the house with a tact 
and graciousness which charmed her guests. Wash- 
ington would say, ''There is always a bit of mutton 
and a glass of wine for a friend," and the warm wel- 
come made them very palatable. 

Washington had selected the site of the city 



26 LADY WASHINGTON. 

which bears his name, and laid the corner stone 
of the present Capitol, called one of the most 
beautiful buildings in the world. His chief interest 
centred in the progress of the city. From the first 
there was a difficulty in purchasing land, the owners 
holding it for fabulous prices which turned the 
city in an opposite direction from that originally 
intended, and accounts for the Statue of Liberty on 
the dome of the Capitol, rather turning away from 
the city than towards it. 

Washington parleyed with Burns, a Scotchman, 
who owned a large tract of land, and pointed out the 
advantages that the location of the city would be to 
his property. With the Scotch indifference to the 
presence of power, and scorn of authority, he said : 
" I suppose you think folks here are going to take 
every grist that comes frae you as pure meal ; but 
who'd you a ben, sir, and where'd you a ben, sir, ef 
you hadn't uv married the Widder Custis ? " If 
Washington had occasion to speak of him after- 
wards, it was as that *' very obstinate man." 

Artists and sculptors pressed their claims, and the 
great man had to pay the penalty of being great. 
As he put it, he was at first as restive as a colt is of 
the saddle ; the next time, there was less flouncing, 
but now no dray moves more readily to the thill 
than he does to the painter's chair. The best like- 
ness of Washinsfton is said to be the one called the 



LADY WASHINGTON. 2/ 

pitcher portrait. The pitchers were imported from 
England. A Philadelphia gentleman managed to 
cleanly separate the part bearing the portrait from 
the pitcher. It was handsomely framed and sent to 
Mount Vernon to Judge Washington, a nephew who 
inherited the estate. 

Gifts of affection and appreciation were sent the 
general by his countrymen, by private English 
gentlemen, and by crowned heads. It is often 
claimed in the present day that the greatness, 
especially the military greatness of Washington is 
overrated, but Frederick the Great inscribed upon 
his gift : *' From the oldest general in the world to 
the greatest," and there was never any mere glamor 
of sentiment about him. 

The French officers, who served in the war, gave 
Mrs. Washington a set of Sevres china. Around 
the outside of each cup and tureen, and the inside 
of each plate and saucer, is painted a chain of thir- 
teen large links and thirteen small elliptical links. 
Within each link is the name of one of the original 
thirteen states. Her monogram is on each piece, 
enclosed in a beautiful green wreath of laurel and 
olive, from which spread rays of gold, making it very 
brilliant. 

Again the country called for the wise and honored 
Washington ; this time to be the head of civil affairs, 
as he had been before of the military. 



28 LADY WASHINGTON. 

Mrs. Washington was a perfect Virginian house- 
wife, could judiciously direct her numerous servants, 
could receive guests v/ith amenity and grace, and 
could preside with dignity. So accustomed had she 
become to knitting in camp for the soldiers, that the 
needles were rarely out of her hands. Slie was as 
reluctant to leave this pleasant, comfortable life as 
her husband. 

She tarried a month after his departure. Accom- 
panied by the grandchildren, Miss Nelly and Master 
George, she set out in her own travelling carriage, 
with an escort of horse, to join her husband in New 
York. On the route, bells were rung and cannons 
were fired, as if she were making a royal progress. 

Washington met her at Elizabeth ; from thence 
they crossed in his splendid barge presented at the 
inauguration, manned by thirteen master pilots, 
dressed in white. Thirteen guns were fired as they 
rounded the battery. Amid deafening cheers and 
booming cannon she stepped into the presidential 
mansion, " first lady " of the land. It was not a role 
to her taste, but she was a true woman, and gloried 
in her husband's honors, and meant that the elegant 
etiquette due to the head of the nation should be 
maintained. 

The question of etiquette in this new court was a 
vexed one. John Adams, versed in the glare of for- 
eign courts, was not ready to cast loose from royal 



LADY WASHINGTON. 29 

titles and splendors, thought the President should 
only be interviewed through the Minister of State. 
Jefferson was intolerant of any style, so there was a 
din at the outset. Washington said he was neither 
master of himself nor of his house. 

It was decided that he was to have no title but 
that of President. By courtesy, guests addressed 
him, as " Your Excellency," and his wife as " Lady 
Washinsiton." In honor of her arrival, her husband 
gave a dinner party. On Friday, and every succeed- 
ing Friday, she held a levee. Her doors were not 
easy of access, and a certain style of dress was re- 
quired, — decollete and bare arms, swallow-tail coats, 
ruffles in sleeves and shirt fronts. The President's 
wife sat, while others stood. There was no shaking 
of the hands ; the stiffness and formality of royalty 
prevailed. The hours were from eight to ten. If 
the guests failed to mark the time on the tall clock, 
by very plain words she would smilingly dismiss 
them : "The President retires at ten, and I usually 
precede him." 

When Mrs. Washington honored one with a call, a 
footman in livery was sent to announce her coming ; 
after a proper interv^al she started, accompanied by a 
gentleman of the household. Did she wish to take 
an airing with Master and Miss Custis, the fine, 
cream-colored coach, frescoed with Cupids bearing 
festoons of flowers, emblazoned with the Washington 



30 LADY WASHINGTON. 

arms, imported from England, with six bay horses 
attached (full-blooded ones), attended by outriders, 
was brought to her door ; frequently, the President 
" exercised " with them. 

Mrs. Washington was even more indulgent with 
her grandson than she had been with his father. 
His sister would say : " Grandmamma always spoiled 
him." His daughter, in a memoir, said: "Had he 
been under sterner discipline, he might have done 
more for his own and for his country's good." 

The grandmother was very fond of Nelly Custis, 
but somehow she seemed to think a thorough training 
more necessary for girls than for boys. Her own 
daughter had never needed control, was all gentleness 
and docility, but this Nelly was full of vivacity, and 
had a will of her own. *' The poor girl," said her 
brother, " would play and cry, and cry and play, for 
four or five hours a day, under the immediate eye of 
her 2:randmother." Then her lessons must be scru- 
pulously learned. 

Washington liked to exact submission to thorough 
discipline from the boy, much as he loved him, but 
for this girl he had a very soft spot in his heart. 
There were the same family jars that had risen in 
the days when the stepchildren were young. 

Washington imported a harpsichord, costing one 
thousand dollars, hoping its elegance would make 
the daily practising easier. The eight official years 



LADY WASHINGTON. 3 I 

were spent, and the public life ended. Mrs. Wash- 
ington called them the " lost years " of he!" life, and 
the President said he had lived in a '' hornet's nest," 
and yet, he added indignantly, they said, " I desired' 
to be king." 

No formal regulations had then been made as to 
state dinners, but Mrs. Washington decided to give a 
large party the day before the close of the adminis- 
tration. The Listons, Wolcotts, Pickerings, McHen- 
rys, Cushings, Binghams, Adamses, Jefferson, were all 
there, with the foreign ministers and their wives, and 
several church disfnitaries. On the removal of the 
cloth, the President rose quite unexpectedly, saying : 
" Ladies and gentlemen, this is the last time I shall 
drink your health as a public man. I do it with sin- 
cerity, wishing you all possible happiness." Bishop 
White, who was a guest and described the scene, 
said : '' This put an end to all pleasantry, and forced 
tears into many eyes." 

On the ninth of March of 1797, the coach with its 
six bay horses, flanked by outriders, stood at the 
door of the presidential mansion. General and Mrs. 
Washington, Master and Miss Curtis, and the son of 
Lafayette, with his preceptor, were driven to Mount 
Vernon. 

Guests were more numerous than ever ; to relieve 
bimself, Washington invited his nephew, Major Lau- 
rence Lewis, to assist in entertaining them, espe- 



32 LADY WASHINGTON. 

cially evenings, that he might indulge his inclination 
of retiring soon after candlelight. 

No complaints were ever made that young Lau- 
rence neglected his duties, but, in addition to them, 
he found time to hang over Miss Nelly's harpsichord, 
take moonlight walks in the grounds, and whisper 
tales that her grandmother would rather that she 
did not hear from his lips. There was a frequent 
visitor at the house, and if he whispered the same 
story, and Nelly listened with a beating heart and 
mantling cheek, there would be no harm done. The 
visitor was Charles Carroll, — a Carroll of Carrolton, 
— travelled, accomplished, adorned with the social 
graces derived from a sojourn in foreign lands. 

Her brother joined her grandmother in singing 
the young man's praises, and advocating his suit. 
Not so the grandfather ; and as for Miss Nelly, in 
the proud flush of her seventeen years and happy 
maidenhood, she didn't mean to marry anybody. 
She liked to wander in the woods alone, to indulge 
in '* meditations, fancy free." Grandmamma thought 
it wrong and unsafe, and forbade it. Nelly's incli- 
nation and restive disposition led her out in the 
gloaming again. She knew she was in the wrong, 
and listened silently to a severe reprimand, making 
no excuses. As she left the room, she heard her 
grandfather say, " My dear, I would say no more, — 
perhaps she was not alone." The girl's spirit rose. 



LADY WASHINGTON. 33 

she turned and stood before him. '' Sir, you brought 
me up to speak the truth, and when I told grand- 
mamma I was alone, I hope you believed I zvas 
alone." 

He made one of his most magnanimous bows, say- 
ing : '' My child, I beg your pardon." 

Before Miss Nelly's decisive plans for remaining 
single had fully matured. Major Lewis used some 
sort of convincing arguments, which induced her to 
change her mind. 

The engagement was very satisfactory to her 
grandfather, and he celebrated the wedding, which 
Miss Nelly arranged should be on his birthday, in 
old Virginia style. She planned and coaxed in vain, 
that he should wear the gold-laced uniform adopted 
by the army officers. On national fete days he wore 
the continental uniform, and he would appear in no 
other. It was only this girl bride and Light Horse 
Harry who ever took liberties with the dignified 
general. Irving relates the extreme length to which 
the latter would go in his jokes ; he was one day 
dining at Mount Vernon when 

" Washington mentioned his being in want of 
carriage horses, and asked Lee if he knew where he 
could get a pair. 

" * I have a fine pair, general,' replied Lee, ' but 
you cannot get them.' 

" ' Why not .? ' 



34 LADY WASHINGTON. 

" 'Because you will never pay more than half price 
for anything ; and I must have full price for my 
horses.' 

^* The bantering reply set Mrs. Washington laugh' 
ing, and her parrot perched beside her joined in the 
laugh. The general took this familiar assault upon 
his dignity in good part. ' Ah, Lee, you are a 
funny fellow,' he said, * see, that bird is laughing 
at you.' " 

The year which began with wedding bells was to 
end in dirges. The angel who had entered the house 
so many times before was even now spreading its 
wings to bear away the best beloved. The blow fell 
in chill December. As Mrs. Washington sat at the 
foot of the bed, fearing, dreading what might come, 
she knew it had come by the looks of anguish painted 
on the faces of those about her. In a firm and col- 
lected voice she said, " Is he gone ? " 

Thrice a mother, yet childless ; twice widowed, is 
it strange that she said : " 'Tis well, all is now over ; 
I shall soon follow him ; I have no more trials to 
pass through." She rose, looked at her dead, tot- 
tered to the door, turned, gave a last look and never, 
in the thirty months left to her, entered the room 
again. 

An old negro servant who showetl the house to a 
visitor said : " The gen'al's room is de room I likes 
de bes' in de house." The bedstead, a little table, a 



LADY WASHINGTON. 35 

secretary, a trunk, his leathern chair with his mihtary 
cloak thrown over it, and a surveyor's tripod, are all 
there as they were eighty-nine years ago. *' Many 
wonders," said the servant, " why Mrs. Washington 
died up in de attic, and not in de gen'al's room. It 
was the custom in de family to shut up a room for 
two years after a death had happened in it, an* dis 
room was shut up. Mrs. Washington went up in de 
attic an' dere she stayed for thirty mu'n's, till she 
died dere. She never had no fire in de winter, an' in 
de summer it was very hot, but dere she stayed, wif 
only her cat fur comp'ny." 

There is a square cut from the lower part of the 
door for the use of this companion. Mrs. Washing- 
ton fell into a gentle melancholy, which overshad- 
owed her life, till she felt that the glad summons for 
which she longed was on its way. Then she grew 
radiant, blessing those to be left behind, and bidding 
them a blissful farewell. 

Born in the fresh springtime, in the fresh spring- 
time she was laid by the side of our Washington, 
who had made her name immortal. 

Long before Washington's death, he wished to 
manumit his servants, but the intermixture by mar- 
riage with the "dower negroes" made it impractica- 
ble. He made provision in his will that upon the 
death of his wife, they should have their freedom. 



36 LADY WASHINGTON. 

Mrs. Washington waived her right of dower, and the 
matter was settled at once. 

It was the son of the '' Lowland Beauty," who pro- 
nounced Washington's eulogy, made memorable by 
the words : '* First in war, first in peace, first in the 
hearts of his countrymen." 



MRS. JOHN ADAMS. 

The wife of the first President of these United 
States was born and bred in the purple ; how differ- 
ent the birth and training of the wife of the second 
in the presidential order. 

Miss Abigail Smith, the daughter and grand- 
daughter of a Congregationalist clergyman, was born 
at Weymouth, Massachusetts. 

The family income was small, every dollar must 
tell its full hundred cents. Life was without ser- 
vants ; sons must be educated, but for the girls what 
mattered it ? It was the fashion of the day even to 
ridicule a woman's learning, if she had any. Girls 
were to stay by the hearthstone and bear full share 
of the household burdens, not light ones when the 
parson tilled a farm in addition to his parochial 
duties. 

Miss Abigail spent the greater part of her girlhood 
at the home of her maternal grandfather, Colonel 
John Quincy. The grandmother was the daughter 
of a clergyman, and the daily life was maintained in 
strict conformity with the austere religion of a hun- 
dred years ago. However, the girl had no frivolity 
about her, and the grandmother's heart was very 

37 



38 MRS. JOHN ADAMS. 

loving. Her lessons on frugality and piety, she ad- 
mits, made a deeper impression on her mind than 
those of her own parents. 

Books were few, but what were to be found in the 
homes to which she had access were standard. 
Eagerly did the young girl read all that came in her 
way ; that she stored carefully what she read is 
shown by her free use of quotations ; at times she 
seems almost pedantic. Homes were widely scat- 
tered, means too narrow for journeying, therefore 
little intercourse could be had, save by letter writing. 

She seemed fanciful about her signature. As a 
girl, she was Diana ; perhaps after her marriage, she 
thought it not fit to bear the name of one vowed to 
maidenhood, for she assumed that of Portia, maybe, 
as better fitted to her prudence, courage, and con- 
gugal fidelity. 

This apparently isolated young girl, never sent to 
any school, always in ill-health, spent a happy, 
joyous life, and in those days of her solitary girl- 
hood, if denied music and dancing, acquired that 
habit of easy letter writing which has given her a 
wider literary celebrity than that of any of her suc- 
cessors in the presidential mansion. Her letters 
were written in those stormy days when household 
items tell so much. 

Those who have time to read Bancroft can know 
all American history, but to every woman's heart is 



MRS. JOHN ADAMS. 39 

dear the way women fought the battle of life in 
those troublous days, and how charmingly she tells 
the story in her family letters, describes events, 
notes a thousand things that would have escaped a 
man's eye. 

When Miss Smith was nineteen, John Adams, 
the son of a poor farmer, a lawyer by profession, 
who, if laurels were to be won, had yet to begin 
the strife, came to the parsonage a wooing. He 
won the heart of the girl, but the parson father and 
the parson grandfather looked coldly on the suit. 
In those days, parsons held their heads high. The 
Pope of to-day can hardly be more absolute in the 
church than was a New England parson, in colonial 
days, in his own parish. Her sisters were thought 
to be better mated, and our heroine losing caste by 
uniting with one whose calling, if not rascally, was 
surely not above suspicion. 

Parishioners in country districts usually think that 
when they hire a parson, the wife and children are 
something thrown in as makeweights, upon whom 
they have a claim, and over whom they have some 
control. If parsons walk a little awry, if the sons 
have a few wild oats to sow — such things may 
perhaps be condoned, but woe to the wives and 
daughters, if off the common track. 

The eldest. Miss Mary, had married an English 
immigrant, who had not then risen to the height 



40 MRS. JOHN ADAMS. 

to which he in after years attained — Judge of the 
Court of Common Pleas in Massachusetts. 

Miss Elizabeth had married a parson, Reverend 
John Shaw, settled in Haverhill, Massachusetts. 
Hymen's torch was lighted for her a second time 
by Reverend Mr. Peabody, of Atkinson, New Hamp- 
shire. 

Here was Miss Abigail throwing herself away on 
a young man of blue blood very much paler than 
her own, who refused to till the ground as his 
fathers had done before him, but had signed away 
his patrimony that he might take a course at Har- 
vard, and then forsooth, he could put his learning 
to no better use than standing up before twelve 
men and trying to make black appear white, and 
white appear black. It was scandalous ! What was 
the parson thinking about ? 

The objections of the ancestral parsons gave way 
to the pleadings of the young people, and before 
the twentieth birthday, the parson father had per- 
formed the marriage ceremony and bestowed his 
blessing, and a married home was set up in Brain- 
tree. 

However, the disaffected busybodies of the parish 
should have a quietus from the pulpit. The text 
was, '' For John came, neither eating bread nor 
drinking wine, and ye say he hath a devil." At 
the marriage of Miss Mary, two years earlier, he 



MRS. JOHN ADAMS. 4I 

had preached from the text, " And Mary hath 
chosen that good part, which shall not be taken 
away from her." 

Ten years of happy, wedded life passed, partly 
in Braintree, partly in Boston, according as her 
husband's impaired health or professional duties 
required. The greatest anxiety was to lay the 
foundations of a competency for age, and for the 
rearing of the children. When away on his court 
circuit he would write to his wife of the necessity 
of cultivating the farm and attending to the stock 
and dairy, rather unnecessary to one trained as she 
had been, none of your modern blue-stockings, too 
absorbed in her classical learning to be a practical 
housewife. 

Without her, maybe, he might have been a bit 
of a spendthrift, for when his law business is 
brought to a standstill by the Stamp Act, he be- 
wails that he has spent an "estate in books," 
bought a pew and a house in Boston. He had not 
then risen to the high plane of patriotism, which 
later on his feet so fearlessly trod, for we read of 
his taking sides against the incensed people who 
had destroyed the furniture of the stamp distributor, 
and attacked the house of Governor Hutchinson. 

As no law business can be done, he thinks he 
must become foreman on his own farm and school- 
master to his own children. 



42 MRS. JOHN ADAMS. 

With the New England thrift, there was never a 
bit of sordid meanness in the man. Once lodoino' 
with a friend, he tells his Portia that he gave pista- 
reens enough to servants and children to pay his 
charge twice over. He was a dear lover of the cup 
that cheers, and he wrote of asking a country wo- 
man, if she would make him a dish, provided it had 
been ''honestly smuggled and no duties paid." 

" No, sir, we have renounced all tea in this place, 
but I '11 make you a cup of coffee," was the answer. 

The same letter said, *' For God's sake make your 
children industrious, for activity and industry will 
be their only resource and dependence." 

A change is coming over the spirit of his dream, 
the practical business man, so thoughtful for his 
future, and for his children, is merging into a poli- 
tician and a zealous patriot ; no half-way measures 
with John Adams. Even Otis said, " His zeal-pot 
boils over." 

Great political anxiety was felt throughout the 
country. The other colonies heard the mutterings 
of the storm, raised by North's shortsightedness and 
George HI.'s obstinacy, but in Massachusetts the 
tempest raged. Otis and Samuel Adams had 
sounded the trumpet of revolution and made stir- 
ring speeches against the Stamp Act. 

Blood had been shed on Boston Common. A 
cargo of tea, upon which the English government 



MRS. JOHN ADAMS. 43 

levied a tax, was tossed into the sea. The port of 
Boston was closed. 

Mr. Adams left his wife, with four young children, 
in a lonely country house to go to Philadelphia, to 
take counsel with the other colonies. No lack of 
encouragement for bold daring and mighty deeds 
in her epistles. She bids him beware of the way in 
which Sparta lost her liberty — she was like the 
women of that country, she wanted her husband 
with his shield, or upon it. She gives him Polybius's 
views upon peace and liberty. She expects great 
and immediate results from this first united Con- 
gress. It is late in August now, and she hopes 
that the first of September will be of as much im- 
portance to Great Britain as the Ides of March 
were to Caesar. 

In the midst of all this classical budiret, the lovinsf 
heart of the wife and mother shone forth. He has 
been absent from her side but a week and a day, 
and she counts it months. She must have some 
amusement to while away his absence, and she has 
fixed upon Rollin's Ancient History, as the kind 
that will best conduce to it. She has little Johnny, 
seven years old, read a couple of pages a day, lest 
he too may miss papa, and she hopes that such 
small doses, taken to while away the time, may give 
him a fondness for the book. He was a very pecu- 
liar boy, so possibly it did. 



44 MRS. JOHN ADAMS. 

Nineteenth-century scholars tell us that in the 
light of recent excavations and deciphered hiero- 
glyphics, Rollin's account of the Ancients is very 
wide of the mark ; but as Washington Irving said : 
" It matters not, if things thousands of years ago 
were not as they are written, if we only believe they 
were so." 

This modern knowledge is apt to unsettle one's 
brain. Shakespeare didn't write, Tell didn't shoot, 
Joan didn't burn, and at Christmastide the clergy- 
men unite to teach the children that even Santa 
Claus is a myth. 

Where ignorance is bliss, isn't it folly to be so 
wise .<* 

Eighteen days from home, Mr. Adams was 
within forty-two miles of Philadelphia. He wrote 
his wife, that it would take a volume to describe 
the journey. He is charmed with the amusement 
that she has provided *'for our little Johnny," and 
he hopes to hear a good account of his "accidence 
and nomenclature," on his return. It is time to 
teach him and the younger children, French. 

Mr. Adams returned to Braintree in October, but 
in the spring, counsels were again held, and again 
that perilous horseback ride to Philadelphia was 
taken. When he was at Hartford, five days from 
home, a swift courier rode through the town telling 
the story of Concord and Lexington. Full of anx- 



MRS. JOHN ADAMS. 45 

iety for wife and children, he sped on his way, writ- 
ing back, if danger threatened her home, to take 
to the woods with the little ones. Heroic advice 
in the month of April, but he knew the mettle of 
the woman to whom he proffered it. 

The state of affairs was very serious. Guards 
were regularly kept, lest there might be a descent 
upon the sea-coast. The woman made but little 
complaint, but there is a touching pathos in the 
letter written just after he left, "I tried to be in- 
sensible and heroic, yet my heart felt like a heart of 
lead. Every line from you is like a precious relic 
of the saints." When he reaches the "far country," 
she begs him to send her some pins, even if they 
be ten dollars per package. 

Her house was one scene of confusion, soldiers 
came for lodging, for breakfast, for supper, for 
drink, etc. Refugees from Boston, anxious and fa- 
tigued, sought an asylum for a day, a night, a week, 
and her doors were open to all, and what hospitality 
her scanty means allowed was given with right 
good-will. Whortleberries and milk were often the 
only food in the house. 

From Penn's Hill, Mrs. Adams watched the battle 
of Bunker Hill, the burning of Charlestown, and 
daily looked for the destruction of Boston, but the 
woman's heart never quailed, though she wrote, 
"The constant roar of the cannon is so distressing 



46 MRS. JOHN ADAMS. 

that we cannot eat, drink, or sleep. We hear that 
the troops destined for New York are all expected 
here, but we have got to that pass that a whole 
legion of them would not intimidate us." 

The remarkable Johnny gives an account of the 
times, — 

''The year 1775, was the eighth year of my 
age. . . . For the space of twelve months my 
mother, with her infant children, dwelt liable every 
hour of the day and of the night to be butchered 
in cold blood — of being consumed with them all in 
a conflagration, kindled by a torch in the same 
hands which, on the Seventeenth of June, lighted 
the fires of Charlestown. I saw with my own eyes 
those fires from Penn's Hill, and witnessed the tears 
of my mother and mingled with them my own at 
the fall of Warren, a dear friend of my father, and 
a beloved physician to me. He had been our family 
physician and surgeon, and had saved my forefinger 
from amputation under a very bad fracture." 

Before, there had been only strife and bickerings 
with the mother country ; occasionally, an humble 
remonstrance was laid at the foot of the throne, but 
now Americans were rebels, rebels in arms, who, 
as Franklin wittily put it, " must all hang together 
or all hang separately." 

Early in July, Washington drew his sword beneath 
the Cambridge elm. In these days when it is 



MRS. JOHN ADAMS. 47 

almost the fashion to smile at the veneration in 
which Washington was held, to express grave 
doubts of his being either a soldier or a states- 
man, it is pleasant to note the favorable impression 
he made upon a woman like Mrs. Adams. " I was 
struck with General Washington. You had pre- 
pared me to entertain a favorable opinion of him, 
but I thought the half was not told me." 

A quotation hoarded up in her mind, slips from 
her lips, — • 

" Mark his majestic fabric ; he's a temple 
Sacred by birth, and built by hands divine; 
His soul's the deity that lodges there ; 
Nor is the pile unworthy of the god." 

Most of the time for more than three years did 
Mr. Adams sit at the council-board at Philadelphia. 
What Mrs. Adams wrote him was worse than war, — 
was the pestilence which followed in its train. 
Some in every household were prostrated ; some 
families stripped of every member. For four weeks 
even the churches were closed. Five members of 
her own family were ill at one time ; three died, one 
of whom was her own mother. This was a severe 
trial for the heroic woman, and her heart went out 
to her husband with a cry of anguish. 

At such a time her heart craves something more 
than politics, than talks of the sagacity of Newton 
and Locke, or the valor, bravery, and courage of the 
Saracens and the Kniohts of Malta. She asks for 



48 MRS. JOHN ADAMS. 

some "sentimental effusion of the heart." Mr. and 
Mrs. Adams never indulged in any more endearing 
epithet than that of '* my dearest friend." If the 
little ones loved papa their warmest word for 
expressing it was, ''respect." 

Early in 1776, Mr. Adams joined Congress for 
the third time. In his youth he had hesitated 
whether to choose the army, the church, or the 
law for a profession. The army had been his 
choice, but he had been unable to obtain a com- 
mission ; now as he sees troops raised, and leaving 
for the North, his martial spirit rekindles, and he 
writes his wife that if an emergency come, he will 
not fail to march^ even if it be with rank and file. 

By his absence at this time, we have an interest- 
ing account of the evacuation of Boston from the 
facile pen of Portia. Unlike any other woman, she 
is not elated, not even pleased ; rather mourns that 
the cooped redcoats have slipped through our fin- 
gers ; would rather that there had been a meeting 
at Philippi of which the ghost of Caesar told Brutus. 
However, she thought Washington might say with- 
out boasting '' Veni, vidi, vici'' 

In the midst of these stirring times, she is amused 
at her husband's Latin couplets, and thinks that his 
daughter, ten years old, may construe (she can't 
herself) as she has already made " some considerable 
proficiency in her accidence." 



MRS. JOHN ADAMS. 49 

Mr. Adams returned home in October and re- 
mained three months. On reaching Fishkill, New 
York, on his way back, he wrote that his journey 
had been like that of " Hannibal's over the Alps." 
It does one good to read that '' if he could take his 
wife to Philadelphia he should be as happy as a 
bridegroom." Not that one can doubt their affec- 
tion, only one can but smile at their formal way of 
expressing it. Repeatedly, she asked him to burn 
her letters; had he done so, how much we should 
have lost, even if she be at times a little beyond us. 

In the autumn of 1777, Mr. Adams came home to 
resume his law practice ; in less than a month he 
was chosen commissioner to France with advice to 
weight his despatch-bags, ready to sink if captured. 
If taken, he would be but a traitor, and the statute 
against treason was death. With streaming eyes, 
the noble wife counselled him to do his duty. This 
time she was doubly lonely, for Johnnie, her oldest 
boy, her '"'little post-rider," the man of the house, 
sailed away with his father. 

The surrender of Burgoyne, united with the influ- 
ence of Franklin and Lafayette, had induced France 
to acknowledge the independence of the colonies, to 
assist in which was the object of ]\Ir, Adams's mis- 
sion. 

He felt stranded, was puzzled what to do ; " I 
cannot eat pensions and sinecures ; they would 



50 MRS. JOHN ADAMS. 

choke me." Months go on and spring comes 
round ; and he has had to submit to the choking. 
At last came the news that Franklin alone was to 
represent America at the French court, but he 
indignantly exclaimed, '' They never so much as 
bid me come home, bid me stay, or told me I had 
done well or done ill." 

It is amusing to see how Franklin tried and vexed 
the methodical New England lawyer. In his eyes, 
the office of the embassy was all in confusion, — 
important papers lying about, no books kept, no 
time given to business ; the doctor seemed to be 
always dining out, hobnobbing with the court, not 
only embracing ladies, but actually embraced by 
them. It was all true. Yet Franklin always 
inspired confidence. By his tact, wit, humor, and 
genial ways he could accomplish an immense amount 
of diplomatic business, form treaties, negotiate loans, 
and bring French statesmen to his views, while the 
precise, hard-working, irascible John Adams, always 
treading upon some one's toes, was constantly giving 
offence, and was snubbed by the officials with whom 
he had to deal. 

After eighteen months of perplexity and dissatis- 
faction, he was again upon the farm at Braintree, 
ready to draw writs and deeds, and harangue juries. 

Two months later, he was ordered to Europe a 
second time, to attempt to treat with Great Britain, 



MRS. JOHN ADAMS. 5 I 

and end the war. In obedience, he sailed in Novem- 
ber, taking not only Johnny, but the second son, 
Charles. 

" My habitation, how disconsolate it looks ; my 
table, I sit down to it, but cannot swallow my 
food ; " moaned the wife and mother. When the 
separation had stretched to three weary years, she 
was asked if she would have given her consent, if 
she could have foreseen the time. 

" Yes, if need be, thrice three years, to have him 
do what he has for his country," was her answer. 
She was a true Portia. 

The Treaty of Peace was signed, but Mr. Adams's 
return was still uncertain, and he sent for his wife to 
join him. 

After some hesitation, she sailed with her daugh- 
ter in a merchant vessel. Her letters give us a vivid 
description of what an ocean voyage was in the 
days before James Watt had watched the nose of a 
tea-kettle. 

After a residence of nine months in Auteuil, four 
miles from Paris, Mr. Adams was appointed Minister 
to England ; not a pleasant position, for the spirit of 
the King rankled over the loss of his colonies, and he 
treated the new ambassador with marked coldness, 
and the court circle followed the lead of royalty. Our 
Republican minister preserved his dignity and manly 
independence. In the first interview, when the King 



52 MRS. JOHN ADAMS. 

would have him commit himself in regard to France, 
he made the naive remark which has become famous 
in history : "I must avow to Your Majesty that I 
have no attachment but to my own country." 

Mrs. Adams was made anxious by the thought 
that she had the social repute of her countrywomen 
to answer for. At her presentation, the Queen was 
haughtily cool, and nothing but the duty of her posi- 
tion could have induced her to repeat her visit to St. 
James. She wrote her sister : " Years hence it may 
be a pleasure to reside here as an American minister, 
but with the present temper of the English, no one 
need envy the embassy." The keenness of her re- 
sentment is shown by her remark years later, when 
the French Revolution shook the British throne, 
"Humiliation for Charlotte will be no sorrow for 
nie. 

/ It was some time before the Puritan children, 
/ brought up on the secluded farm at Braintree, taking 
' part in the domestic duties, taught to be seen and 
not heard, could become accustomed to the servants, 
the pomp, and the expense of living at Paris and 
London. Miss Abigail, the only daughter, was pre- 
sented to Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, who 
treated her with gracious sweetness. 

Presented at St. James, she shared with her 
mother, the cold British stare of Queen Charlotte 
and her ladies. Little cared the American maiden ; 



MRS. JOHN ADAMS. 53 

the days were halcyon ones for her. She had met 
and loved Colonel William Stephens Smith, and he 
had asked her to be his wife ; he had been aide-de- 
camp to Washington, and now was secretary of the 
legation. She was married in London and her mar- 
riage endowed her with her mother's maiden name. 
The marriage proved rather unhappy, and was a 
great source of grief to her parents. She died at 
forty-eight, leaving several children. Johnny or John 
Ouincy as he was now called, had been chosen 
^private secretary to Mr. Dana, Minister to Russia, 
/ had travelled extensively in Europe, and studied in 
Paris. He returned to America before the family, 
that he might graduate from Harvard. 

In the spring of 1788, Mr. Adams resigned, and 
returned to his village home. A few months later, 
he was chosen vice-president. 

For eight years, Mrs. Adams lived at the capital, 
first at New York, then at Philadelphia, and was one 
of the social leaders of her day. 

She was rather of the Minerva type, and inclined, y 
after the custom of her people, to return thanks that ^ 
she had no part in anything not New England. 

It was said that when her New England frigidity 
gave way and kindled into enthusiasm, it was not 
like light straw on fire, but red-hot steel. 

At the resignation of Washington, Mr. Adams 
was chosen President ; and now the daughter of the 



54 MRS. JOHN ADAMS. 

village clergyman and the wife of the village lawyer 
was " first lady " at the Republican court. 

Mr. Adams's administration was unpopular. The 
Alien and Sedition laws proved a fruitful source of 
contention and bitter feeling. They were not the 
product of his brain, but he did not veto or even op- 
pose them ; therefore, the obloquy of them rested 
upon him. 

Louis Sixteenth and Marie Antoinette had perished 
by the guillotine, and there was a new order of gov- 
ernment in France. 

Talleyrand, the excommunicated Bishop of Autun, 
was the tricky minister for Foreign Affairs to the 
Directory. In the arrogance of power, he treated 
American ministers with contempt, — refused them 
audience, covertly asking for a bribe. The gentle- 
men were not wanting in spirit, threw scorn into 
their answer. " Millions for defence, but not a cent 
for tribute," said Pinckney. That ended negotia- 
tions and the American Embassy in France ; our 
flag was insulted on the high seas, and new depreda- 
tions were made on our commerce. 

Mr. Adams took the initiative in war measures, 
and the people were so hot to avenge the insults, 
that for a time he rode high on the wave of popular 
favor. Washington was chosen commander-in-chief, 
and all were breathless for the next move in the 
game. It came from an unexpected quarter ; the 



MRS. JOHN ADAMS. 55 

wily Talleyrand threw out hints that he would meet 
half-way measures. Adams knew peace to be the 
best policy for the country, and was patriotic enough 
to eat his words and swallow his pride. However, 
the Directory was at an end ; Talleyrand had resigned 
and when American ministers negotiated again, it 
was with Napoleon. The war cloud had rolled away. 

Before the inauguration, Mrs. Adams had been 
attacked by intermittent fever, which had so im- 
paired her health, that she spent much of the time 
on the home farm. 

The new city of Washington had been laid out, 
and in 1800, the Capitol and White House, so long 
building, were ready for occupancy. 

Mrs. Adams, travelling by the way of Baltimore, 
joined her husband. Her account of the journey is 
very amusing. They lost their way in the woods, 
retraced their steps, and wandered two hours with- 
out finding a guide or the path. Finally, a straggling 
negro came up and extricated them from their diffi- 
culty. 

The Executive Mansion she called a palace, — it 
must have been a palace with miserable surroundings. 
It had not then even the rough fence and turnstile 
which later, Tom Moore wrote his mother, stood in 
front of the President's home. 

Inaugurating housekeeping, Mrs. Adams found to 
be a very difficult task, — thirty servants required, 



56 MRS. JOHN ADAMS. 

and not a bell in the house — no means of heating- 
or lighting the large establishment, and ladies clam- 
oring for a drawing-room. On New Year's Day, 
1801, she held it with all the formality and etiquette 
of royalty. The east room was unfinished, and used 
as a drying room for the weekly washing. The 
reception was held in the oval room directly over it. 
Except on state occasions, Mrs. Adams was less cere- 
monious than Mrs. Washington, and scrupulously 
returned visits like any other lady — ** yesterday I 
returned fifteen visits," she triumphantly wrote her 
daughter. After a residence of four months she 
went to her home in Braintree, or rather Ouincy, for 
the name of the town had been chansred in honor of 
Hon. Josiah Ouincy. 

Mr. Adams was crushed with shame and filled with 
indignation, when his old friend, Thomas Jefferson, 
defeated him in the presidential election. He even 
lost his dignity. From motives of delicacy, Jefferson 
did not call for several days ; when he did, Mr. 
Adams, for greeting, exclaimed, " You've turned me 
out! you've turned me out!" — it was petty, if meant 
for vengeance. What was worse, and called uncourte- 
ous, on March third, he sat until the clock was on 
the stroke of twelve, making appointments, which 
were termed the " midnight appointments." A new 
law had given him the power, and he had wielded it 
with personal hatred and partisan rage, which cost 



MRS. JOHN ADAMS. 5/ 

him the respect of many friends, and embittered his 
enemies. 

The government was too new to say what was the 
custom, but Washington had established the cour- 
teous precedent of riding witli him to the Capitol, 
lisenins: to his inausfural, and consrratulatins: him 
when he had taken the oath of office. 

Then, the retiring President was the hero of the 
day, but to play a second part in the inauguration ot 
a successor was beyond the magnanimity of John 
Adams. 

Before sunrise, he was in the saddle, and rode away 
from the capital, and never visited it again. 

Years after, Mrs. Adams, without her husband's 
knowledge, wrote Jefferson ; and by her tact and 
innate good sense managed to renew the friendship 
of the two men who had stood shoulder to shoulder 
in the stormy days, at the formation of the govern- 
ment. If one wrote the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, the other was the Atlas to bear it, until the 
immortal fifty-six (himself one) eased him of the 
burden. 

Mrs. Adams had maternal joys and sorrows in full 
share. An infant daughter, her married daughter, 
]\Irs. Smith, and her second son, Charles, died before 
her. The latter dying without fortune, his wife and 
two children were dependent on Mr. Adams for 
maintenance. Thomas, the youngest, studied law 



58 MRS. JOHN ADAMS. 

in Philadelphia, but his career was not satisfactory 
to his parents. Mrs. Adams, the brightest woman 
of her day, had little patience with complaints of 
hard study and ill-health. She wrote in one of her 
letters : " He who dies with studying, dies in a 
good cause, and may go to another world much bet- 
ter calculated to improve his talents than if he had 
died a blockhead 

Parental pride and parental ambition were fully 
satisfied by the honors bestowed on the eldest son. 
He had been a great favorite with Washington, who 
had appointed him minister to the Netherlands. 
Later, he was minister to Berlin, to Russia, and now 
he was appointed by Madison, minister to St. James. 

The crazy George HI. was in his padded cell, and 
his son, afterwards George IV., was Regent. Nearly 
four decades had passed since the new nation had 
asserted itself, but now it was growing and prosper- 
ous, and no one questioned its right to join in the 
stately march of European nations. 

At the election of Monroe, young Adams was re- 
called and made Secretary of State. The mother's 
heart swelled with pride and pleasure, and had her 
life been prolonged she would have seen him at the 
head of the nation. 

After the revolution, Mr. Adams left the farm- 
house, which had been the home of his father, and 
bou^rht a more commodious residence, which had 



MRS. JOHN ADAMS. 59 

belonged to one of the Royalists. He doubled its 
size, and altered its appearance. It was the home of 
his grandson, Charles Francis Adams, who also al- 
tered and improved it. 

One of the rooms was finished in mahogany. Mrs. 
Adams always liked everything about her bright and 
cheerful, and to carry out her taste, over this pol- 
ished almost priceless wood she put a coat of white 
paint. It has since been scraped and its polish 
restored. 

After her husband's retirement, she spent seven- 
teen happy years in the town to which she went as a 
bride. She died of fever, at the age of seventy-four. 

Her capacity as housekeeper, steward, and farm 
manager had preserved her husband's private prop- 
erty, upon which she early foresaw that he would be 
obliged to depend for support in his last years. In 
addition to her good sense and superior mental abili- 
ties, she had that happy faculty, so rare among 
women, of having her own way, and, at the same 
time, instilling into her husband's mind the idea that 
he was having his, — yet she was careful of his dig- 
nity, and never forfeited his affection or respect. 

Mr. Adams lived eight years after the death of his 
wife, dying Fourth of July, 1826. He never forgot 
that the people had denied him a second election. 
He carried on a large political correspondence, well- 
flavored with acrimony ; would say that the franking 



6o MRS. JOHN ADAMS. 

privilege was the only favor for v^hich he was in- 
debted to the government. 

For a long time he was helpless, and had to be fed 
with a spoon, but his intellect was clear to the last. 
Two hours before he died he gave a toast, to be of- 
fered at the Fourth of July dinner, — "Independence 
forever." When the chill of death was creeping 
upon him, he remembered his old friend, and said, 
"Jefferson still lives." 

The entrance of Jefferson into the spirit world was 
in reality two hours before his own. 

History has done ample justice to John Adams, 
who was the Colossus of the Congress of the Revo- 
lution. 



MRS. JEFFERSON. 

When Jefferson became the chief magistrate of 
these United States, there was no woman to share 
his triumph and preside at the presidential mansion. 
In the prime of his early manhood, at the house of 
John Wayles, one of his legal associates, he met and 
loved Martha Skelton, a widowed daughter, reputed 
to be one of the fairest and most accomplished of the 
fair women of the Old Dominion. As she was a 
woman with a tall, graceful figure, abundant auburn 
hair, a face beaming with color and expression, edu- 
cated, with a taste for the higher literature, a marvel- 
lous voice, and skilled in playing the harpsichord, 
it is not strange that she had many suitors. The 
wooing of our hero was long and difficult ; for a time 
it was hard to tell to whom she would give her hand. 

By chance, one evening, two of his would-be rivals 
met at her door ; something in the tone of a love 
song, played by Mrs. Skelton and sung by Jefferson, 
told them that the battle was fought, and they had 
not won. They left without seeing the musicians, 
and Jefferson found the field all his own, and the 
successful wooing went on without a rival. 

On New Year's day, 1772, the happy ending was 



62 MRS. JEFFERSON. 

celebrated, and after a few festive days at the " For- 
est," the home of the bride, the wedding journey was 
begun to Monticello, the home of Jefferson, more 
than a hundred miles away. A snowstorm that would 
have done credit to New England swept over Vir- 
ginia, and, on the last day of the journey, they were 
compelled to leave the carriage and mount the 
horses. At the setting of the sun, the snow was 
two feet deep, and Monticello not only eight miles 
away, but on a mountain five hundred and eighty 
feet high. The hearts of the pair were light, their 
spirits gay, and the distance was made amid mirth 
and fun. The bride and bridegroom had come un- 
expectedly ; the house servants, thinking the storm 
too severe for travelling, had gone to their cabins, 
and were wrapped in sleep. No fire. No supper. 

In Southern homes, no stores are kept in the 
houses, and, in this establishment, nothing eatable 
or drinkable could be found, save a bottle of wine. 
It was dreary, but the house rang with laughter and 
song, and the home coming was ever looked back 
upon as a joyous time. 

A lull in the political strife gave them a year of 
perfect happiness. In the autumn, the little daugh- 
ter, Martha, who figured so largely in Jefferson's life, 
was born. In youth, Jefferson had had a bosom 
friend. The two, lying on the grass beneath an 
immense oak on the Little Mount, had made to each 



MRS. JEFFERSON. 63 

other the romantic promise that the one who died 
first should be buried under this tree, by the other. 
This friend, Dabney Carr, married Jefferson's sister. 
Away from home, he was attacked by malignant 
typhoid fever, and died before his friends knew that 
he was ill. He left six young children. The shock 
was too much for the wife, lying helpless with an 
infant but a few days old, and for a time she lost 
her reason. Jefferson took them all to his home. 
The six were educated and treated with the same 
love and tenderness as his own children, and their 
love for him partook of idolatry. 

He laid the body of the father beneath the oak 
tree, and wrote his epitaph, ending : " To his vir- 
tue, good sense, learning, and friendship, this stone 
is dedicated by Thomas Jefferson, who, of all men 
living, loved him most." His fondness for chil- 
dren was excessive, and what would have been a 
burden to most men was absolute joy to him. The 
death of his wife's father fortunately doubled his 
estate. 

Though Jefferson was a successful lawyer. Coke 
had been, as he put it, '*a dull old scoundrel" and 
only mastered by his unbending will. What he did 
love were music, mathematics, and architecture. To 
fiddle, he would steal hours from sleep. Master of 
Latin, Greek, and of several modern languages, — 
intent even on Gaelic, versed in science and litera- 



64 MRS. JEFFERSON. 

ture, not neglecting Coke, he managed to give three 
hours a day to this amusement. His negro servant, 
in the simplicity of his heart, thought that the fire 
which had burned not only Jefferson's own, but his 
father's books, and all his papers, could not be a 
crushing blow, when he could say at the end of the 
disastrous news, '' But, Massa, we saved the fiddle." 

Before he was of age, he had planned a home on 
the Little Mount. For years he brooded over it, 
was his own architect. A distinguished marquis of 
France, travelling in America, wrote : *' Mr. Jeffer- 
son is the first American who has consulted the fine 
arts, to know how he should shelter himself from the 
weather." In this Italian villa, surrounded by orna- 
mental grounds, one hundred and fifty miles from 
the sea, with nothing to break the view, Martha Jef- 
ferson spent all her married life, almost unclouded, 
until Boston raised her cry of distress. Jefferson's 
spirit kindled at the tyranny of the mother country ; 
he was called to Philadelphia, to meet the master 
minds of the day. It was he who was chosen to 
prepare an humble and dutiful address to the king. 
Humble and dutiful ! 

He, a colonial subject, spoke to the King of 
England as man to man. Every sentence had a 
barbed point. At the end, he bade him, " Not let 
the name- of George III. be a blot on the page cf 
history," bade him, *' Aim to do his duty." It was 



MRS. JEFFERSON. 65 

not sent to the King, but it was printed and sent 
to England, which placed his name on a list of pro- 
scriptions, enrolled in a bill of attainder. 

Americans had been intensely loyal to the mother 
country, and with singular pertinacity clung to her, 
but the burning of Falmouth and Norfolk turned 
the current of their loyalty and made them almost 
unanimous for independence. As Jefferson had 
proved that he could wield a masterly pen, he was 
called upon to draught u Declaration. Always fore- 
most in some overt act, which England called 
treason, Mrs. Jefferson was kept in constant anx- 
iety for his personal safety. 

Twice, Jefferson was named with Dr. Franklin 
as envoy to Paris. He had an intense desire to 
go, but his wife was too delicate to bear him com- 
pany, and nothing would induce him to leave the 
country without her. 

At the surrender of Burgoyne, there was a 
scarcity of provisions at the North, and the pris- 
oners, four thousand in number, were marched to 
Virginia, the wheatfield of America. Their bar- 
racks were within sight of Monticello. Mrs. Jef- 
ferson was very active in assisting the officers' 
wives to settle, and Jefferson threw open his house, 
library, and grounds. The winter was very gay, 
concerts were frequent, and now and then a play 
was given. Even General Phillips, commander of 



66 MRS. JEFFERSON. 

the English troops, whom Jefferson described as 
the "proudest man of the proudest nation on earth," 
was not proof against the Monticello civilities. 

In 1779, Jefferson was chosen governor of Vir- 
ginia. The State stood shoulder^ to shoulder with 
Massachusetts, but since the burning of Norfolk 
the horrors of war had not invaded her soil. Jef- 
ferson had sent every available man and horse to 
Gates, but after his defeat at Camden there was 
nothing to prevent the British troops from sweeping 
down upon Virginia, determined to lay waste the 
country they could not conquer. Arnold sailed up 
the James and ravaged as far as Richmond. There 
was a burning desire throughout the country for 
his capture. At the first call, twenty-five hundred 
militia were on the traitor's path. Jefferson prom- 
ised them five thousand guineas, if he were taken 
alive, but he was wary and the elements favored him. 

This period is the only one when the name of 
Mrs. Jefferson appears among the patriotic women 
of the day. Her life was apart from politics, en- 
grossed in the duties of a large household, but 
when Mrs. Washington called upon her, as the 
Governor's wife, to enlist the women of Virginia, 
in assisting to supply the needs of the army, she 
promptly responded, and her letter to forward the 
scheme is preserved in the New York Historical 
Society. 



MRS. JEFFERSON. 6/ 

Cornwallis and Tarleton swept over the border. 
The famous Tarleton, with two hundred cavalry, 
hoped to capture the Governor and Legislature. At 
midnight, as he halted to refresh his men and the 
horses, a man mounted a fleet steed, rode away, and 
warned them in time to escape. 

Jefferson put his wife and children (the youngest 
two months old) in a carriage, selected his most 
valuable papers, mounted his horse and rode away, 
after he had seen the advance of the troopers, who 
entered the house five minutes after he left it. 

Two faithful servants, Martin and Caesar, were 
bent on concealing the family silver beneath the 
portico, — one stowed away while the other handed 
down. At the sound of horsemen, the one above 
closed the plank, and left the other cramped in a 
small hole and almost suffocated with heat — the 
troops stayed eighteen hours and the devoted fellow 
made no sound. However, it was needless suffer- 
ing, for Tarleton had forbidden any injury to the 
house or its contents. It was only the Governor 
who was wanted, and a pistol was held at the breast 
of Martin, with the threat of putting a ball through 
him, if he did not tell the direction in which his 
master had gone. " Fire away, then," was the un- 
daunted reply. 

Jefferson had another estate a hundred miles 
away, upon which Cornwallis bestowed his atten- 



68 MRS. JEFFERSON. 

tions, destroyed the growing crops, cut the throats 
of the colts, burned the fences, and carried away the 
negroes to his camp, reeking with small-pox and 
putrid fever. 

The frequent raids of the enemy, and the severe 
losses of the defenceless people made them bitter, 
and they cast the blame upon their Governor, who 
had suffered as severely as any. Censure, which so 
often falls to the lot of public men in times of ad- 
versity, cut him to the quick. He indignantly 
retired from public life, with the determination 
never again to accept office. Nursing his wrath, he 
even declined the coveted mission to Paris, when 
his wife was in a condition to make the voyage with 
him, and retired to the domestic affairs of Monti- 
cello. 

Now the war was to be fought upon Virginian soil 
and in Vir2:inian waters; for nine months the contest 
went on. What was begun in the Old Bay State 
was ended in the Old Dominion. 

Constant anxiety and maternal cares told heavily 
upon the delicate wife of Jefferson. Three babies 
died, and when the sixth came, serious fears were 
felt for the mother. Gleams of hope' were followed 
by despair, which settled into certainty. He, with 
his sister and her sister were the only watchers. 
For four months, Jefferson was never beyond her 
call, and most of the time sat at her bedside. He 



MRS. JEFFERSON. 69 

preferred to give her food and medicines with his 
own hands. A wife's pride and ambition for her 
husband had been satisfied, and his tenderness and 
dev^otion, so lavishly bestowed, had turned her love 
into idolatry. She exacted a promise from him that 
he w^ould never marry again, which he, holding her 
hand, solemnly gave. A child of the Church, with 
no fear of death, she clung to him as if there could 
be no heaven without him. At the end he fainted, 
and was so Ions: unconscious it was feared he had 
joined his wife. For three weeks he kept his room, 
attended day and night by his little daughter, who 
was the solace of all his after life. Day and night 
he walked the floor, and at times the violence of his 
grief amazed and frightened the child, but she ever 
kept to her post. When he left his room, it was to 
mount his horse and ride for hours, always taking 
the child, who bore the name of her mother. 

Again the mission to France to assist Franklin 
and Jay in negotiations for peace, was offered him. 
Monticello had lost its charm, and it was a boon to 
go. A house was engaged in Paris, and he was at 
Baltimore ready to sail, when the news came that the 
treaty was signed. 

Peace softened the asperities of war, and when 
Virginia elected him senator to Congress, sitting at 
Annapolis, he accepted the position. Martha was/ 
placed at school in Philadelphia. His letters to her 



70 MRS. JEFFERSON. 

are touching, blending the advice of a father and a 
mother. She must strive to be good at all times 
and to all living creatures ; she must acquire accom- 
plishments. His daughter must be very neat in her 
dress and appearance, her hair must be kept neatly 
brushed ; gentlemen despise slovenliness, and a 
young girl should be careful to avoid it ; " it pro- 
duces great praise to spell well ; " if she be so 
unhappy as to incur the displeasure of her teacher 
she must think no apology or concession too great to 
regain her good-will. 

After peace was signed, commercial treaties were 
to be made, and for the fourth time Jefferson was 
chosen an envoy to Paris. This time he sailed from 
Boston, with the little Martha at his side. Had they 
been a day earlier, they could have sailed with Mrs. 
Adams and her daughter ; but in those days, a large 
supply of stores must be taken, and more prepara- 
tions made than could be accomplished in so short a 
time. 

Jefferson succeeded Dr. Franklin, but as he said 
to the French minister in presenting his credentials, 
" No one can replace him." He had the pleasure of 
witnessing the departure of the grand old man ; 
royalty paid him honor ; the people treated him 
with homage accorded only to royalty : ladies of 
the highest distinction threw their arms around his 
neck and kissed him. Jefferson looked smilingly on, 



MRS. JEFFERSON. /I 

saying, " if he were to do his work, he wished to 
enjoy all his privileges." " Ah, you are too young, 
too young," said the doctor. 

Miss Martha wrote home an amusing account of 
their arrival. " I wish you could have been with us 
when we arrived, I am sure you would have laughed, 
for we were obliged to send immediately for the 
stay-maker, the mantua-maker, the milliner, and 
even the shoemaker, before I could go out. I 
have never had the friseur but once, but I soon 
got rid of him and turned down my hair, in spite 
of all they could say. ... I have seen two nuns 
take the veil. ... I was placed in a convent at my 
arrival, and I leave you to judge of my situation, — I 
did not speak a word of French, and no one here 
knew English but a little girl two years old . . . 
There are about fifty or sixty pensioners in the 
house, so that, speaking as much as I could with 
them, I learned the language very soon. . . . We 
wear the uniform, which is crimson, made like a 
frock, laced behind, with the train, like a robe de 
cour, hooked on, muslin cuffs, and tuckers." 

At first, the child was very homesick, but she 
learned to like convent life even better than her 
father desired that she should. 

The first news from home was that Lucy, the 
baby who came as the mother faded, had died of 
whooping-cough. 



72 MRS. JEFFERSOM. 

The loss of this child made the father wish to 
have his other daughter, his Polly, as he called her, 
with him. He wrote his sister, Mrs. Eppes, who 
had the care of her, to send her in charge of a ser- 
vant. The sensitive child was so heartbroken, that 
a letter of remonstrance was written to her father. 
When persuasions, the promises of big dolls, play- 
things unheard of in America and the companionship 
of her sister availed nothing, a decided order was 
given to send her. So violent was her opposition 
that she was taken, with her cousins, on board a 
vessel, as if it were for a visit ; when from sheer 
weariness she fell asleep, the cousins left her and the 
vessel sailed. The child was old enouoh to know 
that she was ill-treated ; it seemed worse than leav. 
ing her playmate, Jacky Eppes. 

Mrs. Adams received her in London, and from her 
charming letters, we glean an account of Jefferson's 
younger daughter. 

** I have had with me for a fortnight a little daugh- 
ter of Mr. Jefferson's, who arrived here with a young 
negro girl, her servant, from Virginia. A finer 
child for her age, I never saw. So mature an 
understanding ; so womanly a behavior, and so 
much sensibility united, are rarely to be met with. 
I grew so fond of her, and she so much attached to 
me, that when Mr. Jefferson sent for her, they had 
to force the little creature away. She is but eight 



MRS, JEFFERSON. 73 

years old. She would sit sometimes and describe to 
me, her aunt who brought her up, the obligation she 
was under. to her, and the love she had for her little 
cousins, until tears would stream down her cheeks, 
and how I had been her friend, and she loved me. 
Her papa would break her heart by making her go 
again. She clung round me so that I could not help 
shedding a tear at parting with her. She was the 
favorite of every one in the house. I regret that 
such fine spirits must be spent in the walls of a 
convent. She is a beautiful girl, too." 

She had another season of homesickness in Paris. 
— She cared little for music or study, but she had 
her father's power of winning hearts. The nuns 
could not chide, but their hearts went out in ca- 
resses and love for this beautiful child. 

The sweet purity of the nuns, and their intellectual 
pursuits, which were the charm of her life, made the 
convent of Panthemont a charmed place to Miss 
Martha, the girl of sixteen. 

She wrote her father that her choice was to join 
the nuns and live a religious life. The father did 
not hasten to answer, but when he did it was in 
person. He privately interviewed the abbess, with 
beaming smiles met his daughters, and told them he 
had come to take them home. The convent life had 
ended, and never was the girl's request alluded to by 
her father. 



74 MRS. JEFFERSON. 

Masters were employed for the young ladies, and 
Miss Martha was allowed to mix in Parisian society ; 
that espousing the church had no deep hold upon 
her is proved by a rule, laid down by her father, 
that she should go to only three balls in a week. 

A kinsman of Jefferson's, Thomas Randolph, edu- 
cated at Edinburgh, had visited him at Paris, and 
asked permission to woo Miss Martha, the playmate 
of his boyhood. The father was gracious, but on 
account of the girl's age had asked him to defer his 
proposals. 

The young man sailed for Virginia, and in the 
autumn of the next year, Jefferson took his daugh- 
ters home. 

They had a very long passage; entered Chesa- 
peake Bay ni a fog and barely escaped shipwreck, 
and then were run into by another vessel. After 
landing, they nearly lost their effects by the burning 
of the ship. 

At Richmond, they received an ovation. Just 
before Christmas, they reached Monticello. The 
servants had been notified and given a holiday. 
They enthusiastically resolved to meet ''the family " 
at the foot of the mountain. In their impatience 
they started too early, and walked on. Four miles 
from home, they espied the carriage, and, amid 
shouts and cheers, detached the horses and drew 
them home — up the mountain — at a run. Between 



MRS. JEFFERSON. 75 

two files, "the family" entered the house, the 
negroes shouting, "God bless you's — Look at the 
chilluns — Ain't our Miss Patsy tall? Our dear 
little Polly, bless her soul ! " Long years after, Mrs. 
Randolph wrote, " such a scene, I never witnessed in 
my life." 

After settling his daughters, Jefferson intended to 
return to Paris, but Washington had appointed him 
Secretary of State, and, as he backed the appoint- 
ment by a personal request, Jefferson sacrificed his 
inclinations and accepted. 

In Paris, Miss Jefferson must have had some in- 
sight into Thomas Randolph's affections and aspira- 
tions, or else she required little wooing, for in Feb- 
ruary, after her return, we read of a braw wedding 
at Monticello, wherein she played the part of bride, 
and Thomas Randolph, of bridegroom. In the light 
of this event we can see why she was so easily dis- 
suaded from becoming a nun. Jefferson expressed 
his satisfaction by saying : " She has a man of 
science, sense, virtue, and competence." 

The pair lived at Monticello and took charge of 
little Polly. Jefferson's letters are as frequent as 
ever, teeming with advice and instruction, spiced 
with anecdotes, never omitting the latest New York 
fashions. He astonished New Yorkers himself, by 
dressing in red breeches and red waistcoat — Paris 
fashion. 



76 MRS. JEFFERSON. 

When Miss Marie entered her teens, her father 
took her to Philadelphia for the season. On the 
way they visited Mount Vernon. 

Nelly Ciistis and Polly formed an intimate friend- 
ship, and were so " particularly happy " that Polly's 
father left her to go on later with Mrs. Washington 
and her granddaughter. 

She was in a circle of loving friends and passed a 
very happy winter. Mrs. Adams fondly welcomed 
the beautiful girl, who as a child had so clung to her 
in London ; and Jack Eppes, who loved her as a 
child, loved her then, and always loved her, was 
there studying law. When Congress was not in 
session, she divided her time between Monticello 
and her aunt, Mrs. Eppes. 

Jefferson's next public office was that of vice- 
president. In the first year of his term, his 
daughter wrote for his approval of her engagement 
to her cousin Jack. " If he had the whole earth to 
choose from, he would have chosen Jack for her 
husband," was the return answer. In the autumn, 
the marriage took place, and she became mistress of 
her father's house, Mrs. Randolph having removed 
to her husband's estate, which was in sight of Monti- 
cello. 

In 1801, Jefferson became President. John 
Adams, by his courageous independence had main- 
tained peace, and the country was prosperous and 



MRS. JEFFERSON. 'JJ 

happy ; yet so popular was the election of his succes- 
sor, that the day of his inauguration was celebrated 
throughout the United States, as if the nation had 
faced the rocks of Scylla and escaped them. 

Regardless of the parade made by the people, 
Jefferson conducted his part of the programme with 
simplicity. He intended to ride to the Capitol, in a 
carriage-and-four, but as this portion of his equip- 
ment had been left to the care of "Jack Eppes," 
his son-in-law, who failed to produce them in time 
''he rode on horseback to the Capitol, without a single 
guard or even servant in his train, dismounted with- 
out assistance, and hitched the bridle of his horse to 
the palisades." 

Whatever injury Napoleon worked in Europe, his 
day of power was a boon to the United States. The 
English had won Canada from France and their 
covetous eyes were cast upon Louisiana, — to con- 
trol the Mississippi was almost to control the con- 
tinent. 

The dearest wish of Jefferson's heart — the sub- 
ject upon which he had brooded for years, was to add 
it to his country's domain ; he had counselled Wash- 
ington to fight, rather than let it pass into the hands 
of Great Britain. Fortune favored him. Napoleon 
knew its priceless value — no man better, but to 
have invaded and humbled England he would almost 
have sold France. Money he must have, to strike 



y8 MRS. JEFFERSON. 

the mighty blow he meditated. Jefferson sent 
Monroe to proffer it, without haggling over the 
amount. This largest and cheapest piece of real 
estate ever sold, almost doubled the territory and 
importance of the United States. 

For years, the Algerine pirates had been thorns, 
with very sharp points to all Christian nations. It 
seems incredible to-day, that, at the beginning of the 
century, each paid an annual tribute to the haughty 
Dey of Algiers, to protect its commerce ; and con- 
tributions were taken in churches to ransom the 
captured, a regular scale of prices, according to 
rank, being fixed by my lord of Tripoli, but his- 
tory tells the story. 

To the wise foresight of John Adams, the United 
States was indebted for a small navy. Jefferson 
reduced it, but he was very careful that what he 
did keep afloat, should do good service. The port of 
Tripoli was blockaded, the city bombarded, and in its 
harbor, the daring Decatur immortalized his name. 

A new era and a new race seemed to have dawned 
upon the bashaw. As these American Christian 
dogs had a spirit, which it was not well to defy, he 
made peace. 

European nations looked on and beheld what 
prowess and a very small force could do, and by 
combinino: mana^ced to extract the thorns from their 
flesh and shake the incubus from their shoulders. 



MRS. JEFFERSON. 79 

One year of Jefferson's administration was ren- 
dered memorable by the sail of Robert Fulton's 
steamboat on the Hudson. For five years, that 
river could boast of having the only one in the 
world. 

England, always fertile in picking a quarrel, never 
caring for the right, arrogantly claimed that she 
would take seamen of English birth wherever she 
could find them, and if our vessels passed her on 
the high seas, she would stop them and make search. 
Dastardly deeds were done in our own waters. She 
disavowed ordering them and politely expressed 
"regrets," but as for making honest reparation, 
she had no idea of it, not she. 

As the United States was a neutral power, she 
had an honest right to fetch and carry. Napoleon 
said we should have no commerce with England, and 
England, vice versa. As we were a prey to both 
parties, an Embargo Act was passed forbidding 
American vessels to leave port. It was intended 
that our enemies should suffer for our supplies, but 
unfortunately it worked two ways, and we suffered 
for their money. 

Jefferson entailed this feverish state of affairs 
upon his successor, yet his popularity never waned, 
and he could have had a third term, if he would have 
accepted it. 

No one suffered more from the Embarofo Act than 



80 MRS. JEFFERSON. 

Jefferson himself; his cotton and tobacco were 
stored in his warehouses, and he had not where- 
withal to pay his debts on leaving Washington, until 
his agent had contracted a large loan. 

Absorbed in public affairs, he had not looked into 
his own. He wrote that he was in an agony of 
humiliation, and should pass sleepless nights until 
the matter was arranged. 

In his first term the daughters spent one season 
with him. At the close of it, Mrs. Eppes, whose 
beauty exceeded that of her mother, with a consti- 
tution that was even more frail, died after the birth 
of her second child. 

Grief at her loss told so heavily upon the Presi- 
dent, that Mrs. Randolph spent the succeeding win- 
ter with him, and her second son was born that 
season ; at other times the White House was with- 
out a mistress. 

The stately etiquette and the formality practised 
among crowned heads had been maintained through 
Washino-ton's and Adams' administration, but Jeffer- 
son put it all aside. He was not only Republican in 
politics, but in manners and dress. The weekly 
levees were abolished, and only on New Year's Day 
and Fourth of July did he keep open house. He 
kept up old Virginian hospitality ; a long table was 
daily spread and was alvvays full, but the company 
were men. His steward told a guest that it often 



MRS. JEFFERSON. 



8i 



took fifty dollars to pay for what marketing they 
would use in a day. It is said that during Jeffer- 
son's eight years' administration, he and his guests 
drank twenty thousand dollars worth of wines and 
brandy. 

If a dinner were to be given and ladies were 
included, he would ask Mrs. Madison to receive 
and preside. On one occasion, when the dinner 
was announced, he offered her his arm and led the 
way, without any regard to precedence, much to the 
indignation of the British minister, whose wife was 
present. He even made it a matter of complaint, 
and laid it before the English minister for Foreign 
Affairs. Had the royal Charlotte been present, she 
would have had no courtesy on the score of rank. 

Jefferson courteously remained in Washington to 
see his successor installed in of^ce. A family letter 
tells us that, "At Madison's first inauguration, 
Thomas Jefferson Randolph, his grandson and name- 
sake, was a lad of seventeen years, and was his 
grandfather's sole companion as he rode, in those 
days of republican simplicity, up Pennsylvania Ave- 
nue on horseback, from the President's house to the 
Capitol, where grandfather and grandson, dismount- 
ing, hitched their horses to the paling, and the lat- 
ter wQut into the Consfressional halls to see the 
government pass from his hands into those of his 
friend." 



82 MRS. JEFFERSON. 

The next day Jefferson went to his beloved Monti- 
cello, and for seventeen years lived the life of a 
southern planter. 

Mrs. Randolph presided over his house. She was 
the mother of twelve children, six of whom were 
daughters, who never had any teacher but herself; 
these, with Francis, son of Mrs. Eppes, made a 
merry household. 

One serious annoyance was the number of guests 
that thronged the house and literally ate up the mas- 
ter's substance. Once, Mrs. Randolph was obliged 
to prepare beds for fifty inmates. One family of six 
persons came from Europe and remained ten months. 

Jefferson twice had the pleasure of receiving 
Lafayette, and it was he who proposed that Con- 
gress should indemnify the noble Frenchman for the 
money he advanced in the Revolutionary War. 

At a time of financial panic, Jefferson generously 
indorsed a note for a large amount, hoping to save a 
relative from ruin — the ruin came, not only to his 
relative but to himself. 

This loss, with the debt for the Washington ex- 
penses, his immense family, added to the locusts 
which devoured him, brought him to great financial 
straits. The war of 1812 destroyed commerce, and 
his cotton and tobacco were housed as in the days of 
the Embargo Act. Debt was abhorrent to his 
nature. To meet the more urgent claims, he made 



MRS. JEFFERSON. 83 

the sacrifice of selling what was the most precious — 
his library. The collection of it was begun directly- 
after the fire that spared the fiddle. For sixty 
years, in Europe and America, he had searched for 
the rarest treasures ; priceless as it was to him per- 
sonally, he offered it to Congress to replace the 
library burned by the British. A committee was 
appointed to appraise its value. Twenty-three thou- 
sand dollars, half its cost, was the result. 

Congress was as scrupulously exact in payment, as 
Portia with Shylock. 

This was but a temporary relief, and there were 
no purchasers for land, his only resource. Compelled 
to pay the note of twenty thousand dollars which he 
had indorsed, in the last year of his life, he asked of 
the state legislature permission to sell some of his 
farms by lottery, as was often done, if the money 
were to be given for a public object. 

He pathetically wrote : " If it be permitted in my 
case, my lands here alone, with the mills, etc., will 
pay everything, and will leave Monticello and a farm 
free. If refused, I must sell everything here, per- 
haps considerably at Bedford, move thither with my 
family, where I have not even a log-hut to put my 
head into." 

There was so much reluctance and red-tape busi- 
ness, that the scheme was given up, even after the 
Legislature consented ; in sorrow, but with no bitter- 



84 MRS. JEFFERSON. 

ness, he exclaimed, " I count on nothing now. I am 
taught to know my standard." 

Individuals in New York, Philadelphia, and Balti- 
more, who honored the sage of Monticello, and sym- 
pathized in his distress, raised a subscription for his 
benefit, which he proudly called, " The pure and un- 
solicited offering of love," and happily thought it 
would save Monticello for his daughter and grand- 
children. 

He had no disease, nor decay of mental powers, — 
the state he most dreaded. In 1822, he wrote Mr. 
Adams, — 

" I have ever dreaded a doting old age ; and my 
health has been so generally good, and is now so 
good, that I dread it still. The rapid decline of my 
strength during the last winter, has made me hope 
sometimes that I see land. During summer I enjoy 
its temperature ; but I shudder at the approach of 
winter, and wish I could sleep through it with the 
dormouse, and only wake with him in spring, if 
ever." 

It was a case of crossing a bridge, that was never 
reached. 

In June his family were aroused to a sense of his 
weakness by a remark of his own, — handing a paper 
to his grandson, which would require his own signa- 
ture, he said : '' Don't delay ; there is no time to be 
lost." 



MRS. JEFFERSON. 85 

Every clay he grew weaker, and dozed more ; mut- 
tered in his sleep, and always of the events of the 
Revolution — once, with startling emphasis, "Warn 
the committee to be on the alert." 

He compared himself to an " old watch, with a 
pinion worn out here, and a wheel there, until it can 
go no longer." 

As Fourth of July drew near, he expressed a wish 
that he might live to see the day, — so anxious was 
he, that on the third, he would ask upon rousing from 
naps, " Is this the Fourth }" 

He died on the nation's birthday, 1826, in the bliss- 
full assurance that " two seraphs " in heaven awaited 
his cominsf. 

He was buried beneath the spreading oak, where 
he had laid Dabney Carr, his wife, and '' his 
Polly." 

Jefferson appointed Thomas Jefferson Randolph, 
his grandson, his executor. He found the estate in- 
solvent. Monticello was sold, and still there was a 
deficit of forty thousand dollars. He assumed this 
debt and paid it, assisted by his daughters, who 
opened a school. 

To leave Monticello was heartbreaking to Mrs. 
Randolph ; she wrote, " There is a time in human 
suffering when succeeding sorrows are but like snow 
falling on an iceberg." 

She proposed opening a young ladies' school, for 



86 MRS. JEFFERSON. 

the maintenance of herself and unmarried daughters ; 
but when the legislatures of North Carolina and 
Louisiana, each generously voted her ten thousand 
dollars, she abandoned the idea, and removed to 
Washington, where she died in 1837. 



MRS. MADISON. 

When Jefferson was at the head of the nation, he 
conducted the pubhc domestic affairs mostly without 
women. It was a sore grievance to the society class, 
for few men had more power to win popularity than 
he. They thought by woman's wit and woman's will 
to baffle and master him. At the place where and 
at the time when, a drawing-room had been wont to 
be held, they came in full force. The master was 
out riding. A servant met him on the threshold and 
told him the drawing-room was crowded with guests. 
Whip in hand, booted and spurred, splashed with 
mud, he entered. There was a smile and a pleasant 
word for each ; there was nothing lacking in his 
genial high-bred courtesy ; none could tell where the 
rebuke came in, but the thing was never repeated. 

After eight years, he gracefully gave way to the 
silent, solemn Madison, in whose life boyhood and 
youth seemed to have dropped out, and who passed 
more than forty years without quickening a heart- 
beat in a woman's bosom ; yet he led into the White 
House a wife who was the most winsome woman of 
any who has ever graced the station. She has been 

87 



88 MRS. MADISON. 

dubbed " Queen Dolly, the most gracious and be- 
loved of all our female sovereigns." She won favors 
from Congress never before or since granted to 
woman. 

Under all Madison's solemnity and unapproachable 
bearing, he was ever quick to discern and appreciate 
a beautiful woman. When he had passed into the 
thirties, he saw and admired Catharine Floyd, a girl 
less than half his years, said to be of- great beauty 
and vivacity (his style). His way of wooing was 
to sit in the room with her and talk of the public 
debt, imposts, etc., with her father. When he would 
put a seal to the wooing, the girl, under home pres- 
sure, said *' Yes," when she would rather have said, 
''No." 

Now, Madison had a betrothed, and congratula- 
tions poured in. Unfortunately for him, while he 
kept up the political flow with the father, there was 
often another guest, a young clergyman, who looked 
into the girl's eyes, and talked neither politics nor 
shop. Whatever the subject was, it induced her to 
break her troth. It went hard with the staid, som- 
bre man, and that he made a moan is shown by Jef- 
ferson's philosophical letter of condolence, hinting of 
the fishes whose flavor is always recommended to 
one in his strait. But more than a decade went by 
before he angled again, and then it was for the sweet 
Quaker widow Todd. 



MRS. MADISON. 89 

Born in bright, free America, with the blood of a 
Scotch grandame, an English father, and an Irish 
mother in her veins, she seemed to have caught a 
grace from each. When she was a mere child, her 
family removed to Philadelphia, and embraced the 
Quaker faith. No restraints could check the joyous 
flow of spirits in Dolly, nor the love of carnal 
pleasures. 

The Scotch grandmother had little patience with 
the new faith, and when Dolly, at times, put into 
words her longing to be, and to dress like the 
" world's people," would give her bits of jewelry 
worn in her own o-irJhood. As the child could not 

o 

wear or even show them, she made a bag and kept 
them in her bosom, often throbbing with wicked de- 
lio'ht that such thinsfs were hers. Alas ! if it were 
sin, " it found her out," and brought her her first 
great grief. A day came when the bag opened, and 
they were left in the woods, where Dolly had been 
flittino^ about. 

If the mother thought it wicked to wear a ribbon 
or a bit of lace as a foil to beauty, she took good care 
to preserve all nature had given. The equipment for 
school was a white linen mask, sewed to the sun- 
bonnet, and gloves drawn to the elbow. 

Early in life her father had had no money cares, 
but war had swept away the savings of a lifetime, and 
the stern man sank bodily and mentally. 



90 MRS. MADISON. 

There was a young Quaker lawyer of good estate, 
who found Dolly very fair, and wished to possess her. 
His plan of wooing was to heap favors on the father; 
with his sanction he spoke to the girl. 

" I never mean to marry," was the demure reply. 

Her father was more persuasive, and soon John 
Todd bore away a bride. For three years she lived 
the secluded life of a proper Quaker matron, and be- 
came the mother of two babies ; then the yellow 
fever was epidemic in Philadelphia. 

John Todd sent away Dolly and her babies, but 
lingered himself to do what a man and a Christian 
might. When he knew the fever to be burning in 
his veins, he followed his wife, with the cry, " I must 
see her once more." 

In a few hours he was dead, and soon Dolly and a 
baby lay battling with the fever. When the disease 
was stayed, Dolly, with one baby, went home to her 
mother, now widowed. 

The married years had turned the shy girl-bride 
into a beautiful woman. Men would station them- 
selves where they might see her pass. Her bride- 
maid said : *' Really, Dolly, thou must hide thy face, 
there are so many staring at thee." 

It was in a walk that her bright beauty first flashed 
upon Madison. Its effect is shown by a note, written 
the next day, by Dolly : — 

" Dear Friend : Come to me. Aaron Burr says 



MRS. MADISON. 9 1 

the great-little Madison has asked to be brought to 
see me this evening." 

Dolly was in mulberry satin, silk tulle, with curls 
creeping from beneath the dainty Quaker cup, brim- 
ming with fun and sparkling with wit. Soon a 
strange rumor spread through the city. 

The President and Mrs. Washington shared in the 
amused surprise, and, to be assured, sent for Dolly. 
" Is it true ? " asked Mrs. Washington. 

In the same manner with which she had once an- 
swered John Todd, she said, "No, I think not." 
Confusion and blushes told the tale she would hide, 
and Mrs. Washington bade her " not be ashamed," 
it was "an honor to win a man so great and so 
good ; he will make thee a good husband, and all 
the better for being so much older. We both ap- 
prove of it ; the esteem and friendship existing be- 
tween Mr. Madison and my husband is very great 
and we would wish thee to be happy." 

Scon, with her child, sister, and maid, she was 
driven from the city in an open barouche, and the 
" Father of the Constitution," mounted, rode at her 
side. At the home of her sister, who married a 
nephew of Washington, she became Mrs. Madison. 
Guests came from far and near, and the merry- 
making went on for days. That love had trans- 
formed the man is proved by the young girl guests 
daring to cut bits of Mechlin lace from his shirt 
ruffles, as mementoes. 



92 MRS. MADISON. 

Amid showers af rice and tossings of slippers, the 
barouche was driven away, with the bridal pair, 
bound for Montpellier, Madison's ancestral estate, 
where his parents still lived. 

Madison had won the whole heart of this brilliant 
woman, and he proved the most devoted of husbands, 
an indulgent father to her child, a tender son to her 
mother, and to her little sister he gave a home, until 
he gave her away, a bride. 

Country life, with abundant means, was for Mrs. 
Madison, one round of pleasures. The poor blessed 
her name, servants vied with one another to do 
her bidding ; little negroes would trot after her, in 
her walks and call her *' Sweety," and the mother of 
Madison thought there was never a woman the equal 
of "James's wife." 

When Jefferson became president, he made Madi- 
son, Secretary of State, and even then it may be 
said that his wife's reign began. As there was no 
lady in the Executive Mansion, this brilliant, sunny- 
hearted, witty little quakeress from Philadelphia, 
was the social centre of the city. If a "first lady" 
were needed in the White House, Jefferson sent his 
compliments, with a note requesting the society of 
Mrs. Madison. 

Party spirit never ran so high, but in the drawing- 
room of Mrs. Madison, under her gracious tact, men, 
who would meet at no other place forgot their bitter- 



MRS. MADISON. 93 

ness. She made foes friends. Her civilities were 
never influenced by party politics, and at her social 
board, where she dispensed her lavish hospitality 
with quiet dignity and elegance of manner, the 
subject was never mentioned. 

The step to the White House was only what 
might be called her coronation. When she was 
congratulated on her husband's occupation of it, 
with her ready wit, she answered, " I don't know 
that there is much cause for congratulation. The 
President of the United States o^enerallv comes in at 
the iron gate and goes out at the weeping willows." 
At that time, there was a side entrance, a stone 
archway, with a weeping-willow on each side of it. 

Whatever the end was to be, the beginning was 
very brilliant. Mrs. Madison in buff velvet and 
bird-of-paradise plume, looked and moved a queen. 
Madison was very pale, and more solemn than usual. 
Jefferson was all life and exhilaration. The Em- 
bars^o and troubles with France and Ensfland misfht 
lead him under the willows, but then, he had taught 
the Bashaw of Tripoli manners, which all Europe 
had failed to do ; the purchase of Louisiana was his 
crown of glory, and Martha, grandchildren, and 
Monticello were before him. 

Now, there was a Republican Court in earnest. 
Drawing-rooms were held, which were never dull nor 
tiresome. Washington Irving would have it, that 



94 MRS. MADISON. 

he met there the " merry wives of Windsor." Din- 
ners were given, which the English minister, in 
derision, called harvest-home feasts. Mrs. Madison 
would smile, thank God for abundance, and the 
unlikeness of her court to that of the shamefully 
dissolute one of the Regent of England. She 
returned, like Mrs. Adams, all visits paid her, and 
organized '' dove parties," composed of the wives of 
cabinet officers and foreign ministers, which were 
very gay and popular. She had high-bred airs and 
refinement, was beautiful in form and features, 
always richly and elegantly dressed, as became her 
position. At her marriage, by her husband's re- 
quest, she laid aside the Quaker dress, retaining only 
the dainty cap, which was very becoming, but even 
that was put aside in the Executive Mansion. The 
Quakers charged her with " an undue fondness for 
the things of this world," but by her sweetness and 
affability she retained their favor. She was remark- 
able for rarely forgetting a name, would even 
remember little incidents connected with her guests. 
The first term, which had passed for Mrs. Madison 
in unclouded happiness, was drawing to a close. It 
was said that Jefferson chose his own successor, but 
he had passed the government to him with Pan- 
dora's box wide open, and had also reduced the 
means of stamping out the evils, which had escaped 
and were workins: bitter results. 



MRS. MADISON. 95 

George III. was harmless in his padded cell, but 
his son, who resembled him in everything but his 
virtues, retained the old ministry, and a heavy hand 
was laid upon the new and struggling nation. 

British emissaries had stirred up an Indian war in 
the West and paid bounties for scalps ; on the sea, 
they had captured the vessels of the East, and had 
impressed American seamen. The people hated 
England and clamored for war. Madison was a 
statesman, and knew that the best interests of the 
country demanded peace. Did he pursue it, he must 
lay down his sceptre. 

The opposition jeered, and one member declared 
in Congress, that "the President could not be kicked 
into a fight," which passed into a proverb. He was 
human and the stakes were high. War was de- 
clared, and a second term began, not smooth or 
uneventful. 

Through want of military skill or foresight, an 
order was given to send to Michigan a general 
never in action, unnerved at the thought of blood- 
shed, with a handful of raw troops and raw militia, 
to invade Canada. He showed the white feather to 
his men as they stood before their guns with lighted 
matches — to the enemy a white tablecloth before 
a gun was fired. Instead of taking Canada, Canada 
took Michigan. 

Two months later there was another advance on 



g6 MRS. MADISON. 

Canada at Oueenstown Heights ; powder and can- 
non balls did come into use, but it ended in defeat 
and disgrace. 

Hull, who had surrendered Michigan, had a 
nephew, the captain of the " Constitution," who 
poured his broadsides with the intent of bringing 
blood and doing mischief, and astonished the coun- 
try by a naval victory, which somewhat retrieved 
the name from disgrace. The country was in one 
blaze of enthusiasm. Privateers fitted out from 
every port, scoured every sea, and inflicted heavy 
injuries upon the "mistress of the seas." 

Canada was allowed a year to recuperate from the 
invasion of her frontiers, and then, to make sure 
work, a triple force was sent. Harrison by land 
and Perry on the Lakes covered themselves with 
glory, not by taking Canada but by rescuing what 
Hull had so basely flung into English hands. 
Perry's despatch to headquarters was as laconic and 
graphic as Cccsar's, when he conquered the King 
of Pontus. 

There was a fresh complication. The Creeks had 
donned the war-paint and started on the war-path. 
Jackson, disabled by wounds received in a personal 
fray, managed by iron will and military skill, aided 
by his majestic mien and blazing eyes, to wipe out 
that difficulty and end that nation. Ah ! If //^ had 
been sent to take Canada ! 



MRS. MADISON. 9/ 

In the third year of the war, there was another 
attempt to invade that country. 

Scott won his spurs, and had there been a suitable 
force, his victory might have been followed up ; as 
it was, the Americans, with an inferior force, had 
simply whipped the British at Lundy's Lane. 

Canadians tried invasion on the borders of Lake 
Champlain — their soldiers were veterans, trained 
by Wellington. Result : They fought, aided by the 
British fleet — lost the fleet — ran away, leaving 
wounded and military stores behind them. 

The British blockaded and ravaged the Atlantic 
coast from North to South. .Lighthouses only 
benefited the enemy, and the lighting of the lamps 
was forbidden. 

The crowning humiliation came, when the British 
sailed up the Potomac and burned Washington. 
Madison was called away the day before ; his wife 
lingered until the sound of the cannons was heard, 
even then stopped to secure the picture of Wash- 
ington painted by Stuart ; the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence was in her bag. She said, " I lived a 
lifetime in those last moments." There was not 
even the semblance of an army to protect the na- 
tional capital, though the President was warned two 
months in advance, that the British were preparing 
to take it. 

Admiral Cockburn, at the head of his men, entered 



giS MRS. MADISON. 

the Capitol, mounted the speaker's chair in the 
Hall of Representatives, and shouted : " Shall this 
harbor of Yankee Democracy be burned ? All for 
it will say. Aye ! " And a thousand voices ans- 
wered, " Aye ! " It was a vote, and it was done. 

Proud of the night's achievements, they would 
repeat them at Baltimore, and so they sailed away. 
The Baltimoreans were roused and made so vigorous 
a defence that the enemy retired, with the loss of 
General Ross, commander of the land forces. 

During the bombardment, the sight of the flag 
waving over the Fort, making such a plucky defence, 
inspired Francis S. Key, a prisoner on board 
the British fleet, to write the " Star Spangled 
Banner." 

The pusillanimous way in which the war was con- 
ducted, roused the nation to fury. New England 
felt equal to taking care of herself, but she was 
going to give no more help in the taking of Canada. 
The President might give up the capital without 
putting forth his hand, but her people were not of 
Virginia stock and would not submit tamely to the 
burning of her sea-ports. A convention met at 
Hartford and made some propositions to be laid 
before the government of the United States. There 
was a very plain intimation of what measures would 
be taken if her propositions were not acceded to. 

The peace-loving and war-making President was 



MRS. MADISON. 99 

more distrausfht than ever. Civil war was more to 

o 

be dreaded than foreign. 

Opportunely, peace was declared, and we are 
spared from knowing to what lengths New England 
would have gone. A Hartford Convention Feder- 
alist and a Southern Secessionist, both terms of 
obloquy, mean about the same thing. People who 
live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. 

Jackson had fought his famous battle ; fought it 
after peace was signed, signed without England's 
giving up the right of impressment — America's 
grievance, for which she went to war. 

If Madison's fame were tarnished, Queen Dolly 
held a more dazzling court than ever, and was called 
the most popular person in the United States. 
Traditions and sweet memories of her last New 
Year's levee still linger about Washington. She 
was dressed in pink satin, elaborately trimmed with 
ermine, gold clasps around her waist and wrists, 
white satin turban with a crescent in front, topped 
with towering ostrich feathers, which were said to 
gleam above the rout like the white plumes of 
Navarre. She seemed to invest the city itself with 
a courtly tone and something of a royal flavor clung 
to the manners and presence of the heads of the 
government. 

The troubled administration closed amid the social 
pyrotechnics of Queen I)olly. Madison retired to 



TOO MRS. MADISON. 

Montpellier and maintained, like Wasiiington and 
Jefferson, old Virginia hospitality. His wife was a 
magnet who drew about her, not only the nation's 
best and distinguished guests from abroad, but 
country people would beg the privilege of seeing 
her, and one farmer's wife from a distance asked 
to kiss her, that her girls might tell of it in the 
years to come. 

Madison had a suffering, lingering illness. She 
tended him with most wifely devotion, and for eight 
months never went beyond her own grounds. At 
his death, she thought the only work left her to do 
was to arrange his letters and manuscripts, which 
both parties in Congress voted to purchase, because 
it was she who offered them. She was given the 
franking privilege, allowed a seat on the floor of 
Congress, a favor accorded to no other woman. 
The flirtations of that august body with Mrs. Madi- 
son became a topic of the press. 

To be among her old friends, she returned to 
Washington, where it was not only deemed an honor 
to be her guest, but to be a guest where she was 
present. She was the President's guest on the 
steamer "Princeton" when the great cannon, called 
the Peacemaker, exploded. Rumors of the accident 
went abroad, and crowds assembled at her house, 
anxious to be assured of her safety. 

She preserved her presence of mind in the midst 



MRS. MADISON. lOI 

• 

of that dreadful scene, assisted in the care of the 
wounded, soothed their friends, went home, walked 
before her guests, pale as death, smiling but silent. 
At no time could she speak of it, or hear it spoken of. 

She had never been a Quaker at heart. Hers was 
a nature to appreciate, and a heart to love the 
splendid ritual of the Episcopal Church, of which 
in these later years she became a member. 

A dissolute son had been the one shadow of her 
life, and the shadow deepened in her widowed years. 
He had spent his own patrimony, — Madison had 
many times paid his debts, — and now he brought 
straitened means upon his mother, which forced her 
to sell Montpellier. With the glossing of a mother's 
love, she would pathetically say : *' Forgive my bdy 
his eccentricities ; his heart is all right." 

In advanced years, this brilliant woman, so popular 
and beloved, a queen of society, took Solomon's 
view of life, and thus expressed it to a troubled 
young girl: *'My dear, there is nothing, nothing 
in this world worth caring for." 

With a sore, grieved heart, she died at the age of 
eighty-two, the name of her ''poor boy " on her lips 
at the last. Two years later, Payne Todd died of 
typhoid fever, having just grace enough to be sorry 
for his misdoings. In his illness, he was tended 
by the faithful servants of his mother, and they 
alone followed him. to his grave. 



I02 MRS. MADISON. 

Until ruined by dissipation, he had a markedly- 
handsome face, and the gracious manners of his 
mother. He accompanied the American Commis- 
sioners to Russia and Ghent, and at each court 
he was treated as if he were a prince of the blood 
royal. In his last years. Clay asked him if he re- 
membered when he was admitted to the floor at a 
royal ball and danced with a Czar's daughters, while 
he, as a commissioner, was only allowed in the gal- 
lery as a spectator. 



MRS. MONROE. 

Miss Eliza Kortwright was the daughter of an 
American who was loyal to England, and through 
the war of Independence fought under her banner. 
When loyalty would no longer avail, he settled in 
New York, and became a citizen under the laws of 
that State. 

In the year of Washington's inauguration, his 
daughters were among the belles of that brilliant 
season. The first mention of Miss Eliza, apart from 
her sisters, is in a note of Monroe's to Madison, 
expressing a wish to introduce him to a young lady 
who would soon become an adopted citizen of 
Virginia. Three months later he wrote to Jefferson, 
breaking promises of visiting, and settling plans for 
the future, and from what follows, we gather that his 
excuse lay in the fact that he had married a wife. 
In the gush of friendship and devotion which Jeffer- 
son so often inspired, he declared his intention of 
making a home where he can enjoy the com- 
panionship of the master of Monticello. 

Mrs. Monroe must have been a very quiet, do- 
mestic woman, for while private letters and the press 

103 



104 MRS. MONROE. 

teem with notices of the wives of the earlier presi- 
dents, we find little mention of her. 

Mrs. Adams, in her printed letters, says the ladies 
of the Republican Court were the most beautiful 
women in the world, and in this respect, Mrs, 
Monroe was no exception. After four years in 
Congress, Monroe was sent as envoy to Paris, and 
there the sobriquet for his wife was " la belle Ameri- 
caine'' 

It is in Paris that we find the only link which 
connects her with her husband's public life. His 
appointment came just after the fall of Robespierre. 
He had not then acquired the wisdom which came 
with years. His instructions were to attend exclu- 
sively to the interests of his own newborn and 
strusfSflino- oovernment. From the first, he threw 
his whole soul into the affairs of P'rance, trying to 
become a sister republic. 

Americans did not particularly love France, who 
only sent them aid to thwart her hereditary foe. 
What was begun as shrewd policy, Charles X., — 
dethroned, an exile, sailing away in an American 
ship, — declared the greatest mistake France ever 
made. But Lafayette, Rochambeau, DeKalb, and a 
host of others, lived in the hearts of the nation. 
They had proffered their services without pay, and 
followed Louis XVL's generous orders to yield 
precedence to American ofificers. 



MRS. MONROE. . I05 

Lafayette had been foremost, and his young and 
doting wife, putting self aside, had urged him on. 

When it was told that he was in an Austrian 
dungeon, his wife and children imprisoned in Paris, 
Monroe, forgetting that, as an accredited minister, 
he should express no personal feelings, threw pru- 
dence to the winds. 

To interfere in the Marchioness's behalf, and fail, 
was to seal her fate. He proposed to Mrs. Monroe 
that she should go to the prison and try to obtain 
an interview. Retiring and diffident as she was, her 
woman's heart was stirred, and an unnatural daring, 
inspired by zeal, carried her to success. 

Monroe was the only foreign envoy received by 
the government, and the coming of his wife in a 
carriage, on which were the emblems of his rank, 
aroused the awe and respect of the gaoler. Ex- 
pecting a refusal, Mrs. Monroe proffered her request 
as one that she had a risfht to demand. She was 

o 

asked to the reception-room, and in a short time the 
prisoner came, accompanied by a guard. For hours, 
she had been listening for the steps of the gen- 
darmes, to take her to the guillotine. When she 
was told that she had a visitor, and that visitor 
proved to be the wife of the American ambassador, 
she could only sink and sob at her feet. In the 
presence of a sentinel, little could be said, but as 
Mrs. Monroe rose to leave, in a firm, steady 



I06 MRS. MONROE. 

voice, she promised to repeat her visit in the 
morning. 

That evening was really the one fixed for the 
execution, but a council was called, in which it was 
held that the fate of the woman was of little moment, 
but to risk the displeasure of the American minister, 
and the American people, would be serious. 

When the morning came, the prison doors opened, 
and she was free. 

Sending her boy to Washington — whose name he 
bore — she, in disguise, made her way to Olmutz, 
and begged to share her husband's fate. If she 
crossed the threshold, there was to be no return, 
and the loving woman accepted the cruel terms. 

More than three years in a dungeon ten feet deep, 
where the sun never sent a ray, had lain the friend 
of America, in chains. Twenty-two more weary 
months dragged on, but these were cheered by the 
presence of his wife. 

As soon as Washington was free from his official 
position, he appealed to Napoleon, and, backed by 
his power, gained their release. 

The conqueror of Italy declared that the most 
difficult point to settle with the Austrians was the 
giving up of the prisoners at Olmutz. The Empe- 
ror claimed as an excuse, that 'Miis hands were tied" 
— tied by whom.'' His allies; which only meant 
England. In vain had ,Fox, supported by Wilber- 



MRS. MONROE. 10/ 

force and Sheridan, pled the prisoner's cause with 
impassioned eloquence before the British Parliament. 

It was the will of Parliament that the Republican, 
who had helped to tear from the English crown its 
brightest jewel should lie in a dungeon in chains. 
He was the first leader upon whom it had had the 
power to wreak vengeance, and the Emperor of Aus- 
tria was given to understand that its ministers enjoyed 
it. If the release displeased England, the more it 
pleased Napoleon to insist. 

Monroe's second exploit had been to procure the 
release of Thomas Paine from prison, and keep him 
ten months in his own house. Jefferson said : " If 
the soul of Monroe were turned inside out, not a 
spot would be found upon it," but his enthusiastic 
espousal of the P^rench Revolution, the using of his 
official position for the benefit of political prisoners, 
caused his recall, as a disgraced minister. In all his 
after life, though crowned with the highest honors, 
he felt the sting of that recall as he felt the bullet, 
never extracted, received at the battle of Trenton. 

Upon his return, the home life which he had prom- 
ised Jefferson, when he made Eliza Kortwright his 
bride, began in Virginia. He was chosen governor 
of the state and held the office three years, but in no 
way can we find any mention of Mrs. Monroe. 

Monroe's effusive sympathy when minister, and 
consequent recall, had made him popular in France, 



I08 MRS. MONROE. 

and when Jefferson sought to gain Louisiana, he 
sent Monroe as special minister to Napoleon, with 
carte blanche to negotiate for what has been called 
*'the largest transfer of real estate which was ever 
made, since Adam was presented with the fee-simple 
of Paradise." 

Again Mrs. Monroe, in her quiet, gentle way, 
moved in the most polished court in Europe, — her 
children the companions of Josephine's. The elder 
daughter was at the celebrated school of Madame 
Campan with Hortense, and they formed an intimacy 
which lasted through life. 

From Paris, Mr. and Mrs. Monroe went to Eng- 
land, but her ministers were so haughtily arrogant in 
their claims, all negotiations failed. 

England had not yet learned to treat the minister 
of her lost colonies with respect. The dissolute 
court (where the wife of the Regent, who had been 
pronounced by Parliament an innocent woman, was 
a repudiated wife) did not accord with Mrs. Mon- 
roe's dignified sense of propriety. 

From London they went to Madrid, from thence 
to Paris, leaving the boundaries of the Spanish pos- 
sessions unadjusted. 

They were fortunate in being present at the grand 
pageantry of Napoleon's coronation, — he astonished 
the world by crowning himself, after summoning 
Pius VII. from Rome for the purpose. 



MRS. MONROE. IO9 

Another ineffectual attempt was made to treat 
with Great Britain, but the firing upon the Chesa- 
peake, in our own waters, so complicated affairs that 
Monroe was recalled, at his own request. Even 
then, though he had taken so active and successful 
a part in the great real-estate purchase, the Ameri- 
can people could discern about him no halo of glory. 
The baffled negotiations wit-li England had come 
later, and they forgot, or were ignorant of England's 
maxim, " Might makes right." With wounded 
pride, Monroe retired to Oak Hill, the Virginian 
home. 

Mrs. Monroe resumed her quiet, country life with 
delight. It was a short-lived rest, for her husband 
was chosen Governor of Virginia, which office he 
soon resigned to become Secretary of State. 

Cheerfully, Mrs. Monroe acquiesced in the return 
to Washington, never submitting to a separation 
from her husband, until the capital was threatened 
by the British ; then, in anxiety for her children, she 
retired to Oak Hill. 

When the war policy of taking Quebec, and dicta- 
ting to England terms of peace at Halifax, had been 
abandoned, — when the national capital had been 
burned, poor Madison, who could not count for 
even a piece of a man in war, tried to double his 
efficient Secretary of State, by making him Secre- 
tary of War as well. 



no MRS. MONROE. 

Monroe was a man of courage, ability, and withal 
a soldier, who had done good service on many a hard- 
fought field. There was no more supineness. It 
was known that the English were preparing for a 
descent upon the Southern coast. Troops were 
raised, and the secretary even pledged his private 
fortune to equip them. The command was given to 
Jackson, who panted to meet the British, no matter 
how unequal were the forces. 

Peace was signed and the southern battle was 
fought. The news of peace was received in America 
,with transports of joy, even though it was signed at 
Ghent instead of Halifax. Half the people thought 
we had been fighting the wrong party, and that 
Napoleon had been more perfidious and insulting 
than England. The victory at New Orleans made 
the people still more delirious, and they began to 
wish that peace had never been signed. 

In 1817, the nation recognized Monroe's great 
services, and he became the Chief Magistrate, dubbed 
as the "last of the cocked hats." Four years later 
he received every electoral vote save one. The 
man who threw it, gave as his only reason a deter- 
mination to have no man honored as Washington 
had been. 

The rebuildinsf of the White House had been com- 
pleted in time for his inaugural festivities ; furniture 
from a royal palace in France, the crowns upon it 



MRS. MONROE. Ill 

being replaced by eagles, was placed in the East 
Room, and everything arranged on a more elegant 
footing than before. 

Following the dazzling *' Queen Dolly," Mrs. 
Monroe made heroic exertions, but entertainins: 
was not her forte. An Englishman wrote home 
that the *' new lady " was regal looking, retaining 
traces of her early beauty, had polished manners, 
but her dinners were tedious, and her levees formal, 
from which all were glad to escape. 

The country was at peace, and every industry 
began to flourish. The cotton gin had given an 
impetus to the raising of the chief product of the 
South, which even in those days gave it kingly 
importance. Monroe's administration was called 
*' the era of good feeling," but this cotton raising 
necessitated negro labor. A new state knocked at 
the door of the Union, and claimed that her interests 
demanded that the institution peculiar to the South, 
should be allowed her. The North, who had been so 
insubordinate in the last administration, knew yV/i-/ 
what should be done in this case. The state might 
be a star, but it was not to be weighted with slavery. 
The Slave States, in sympathy with the sister waiting 
to come in, raised the cry of secession, civil war, and 
bloodshed ! New England was shocked ! The 
giants had not reached their prime, — according to 
Josiah Quincy ''their pin-feathers were not yet 



112 MRS. MONROE. 

grown," — but on the floor of Congress they battled 
with their misfht over this mad scheme. One of the 

o 

pin-featherless ones was ready to give and take — 
tJiis state might buy and sell humanity, but nobody 
north of her most southern limit was to have the 
same privilege. The South consented, on the prin- 
ciple that, " sufficient unto the day is the evil 
thereof." 

So Missouri took her place, and people began to 
feel good again, but it made the tiny crack which 
shot this way and that, until the Union was so 
shaky that the choosing of a president sent it all to 
pieces in 1861. 

It seems as if the mantle of a prophet must have 
fallen upon Jefferson, for he wrote: "The Missouri 
question is the most portentous one that ever 
threatened the Union. In the gloomiest moments 
of the Revolutionary War, I never had any 
apprehension equal to that I feel from this 
source." 

Florida Indians began to make inroads on the 
Border States, and Jackson was sent to drive them 
back. With his usual skill in provoking a fight and 
coming out of it triumphantly, he did this time 
with Spain, capturing one of her towns. Out of 
his reckless disregard of laws resulted the treaty 
by which we gained Florida. On the principle that 
" All's well that ends well," he escaped punishmxcnt. 



MRS. MONROE. II3 

though he had compromised the character and 
almost the peace of the country. 

Early in Monroe's administration, he determined 
that if foreign nations again interfered with Amer- 
ica, he would not be caught as Madison had been, 
ignorant of the capabilities of the country ; there- 
fore, he made a progress through the North and 
East, and visited every military post, which brought 
him in contact with the people and added greatly to 
his popularity. 

He travelled in the undress uniform of a Revolu- 
tionary officer — blue military coat of homespun, 
buff doeskin breeches, cocked hat, and a black rib- 
bon cockade. 

Mrs. Monroe's health failed, and in the latter term 
of her husband's administration she was rarely seen. 
In 1824, she had the honor of receiving and enter- 
taining Lafayette as the nation's guest. 

Monroe promulgated the great doctrine that has 
ever since been stamped with his name, which means 
that there is to be no picking nor stealing on the 
American Continent by European nations. The 
French thought to test the strength of it in Mexico, 
but the ignominious withdrawal of their troops and 
the execution of Maximilian was the result. Had 
the Mexicans been slow of hand, United States 
troops were ready to step to the front. 

Monroe retired, crowned with honors. Mrs. Mon- 



114 MRS. MONROE. 

roe introduced the custom of returning no visits, 
which has been followed by all her successors in the 
White House. 

Oak Hill is in the neighborhood of Monticello and 
Montpellier, and Monroe shared with Jefferson and 
Madison the burden of entertaining guests who, 
from friendship or curiosity, thronged their homes. 

Congress had never reimbursed Monroe for the 
money he had advanced in the war of 1812. Public 
duties had so engrossed him, that he had given no 
attention to his private affairs, and, like Jefferson, he 
was burdened with debt. 

Mrs. Monroe's two daughters were married and 
lived at a distance. Her feeble health gave her an 
excuse to live the recluse life she enjoyed. Five 
years after her husband's retirement, she was seized 
by a sudden illness, which proved fatal. 

Monroe's narrow means compelled him to give 
up his home, and he went to New York, to the resi- 
dence of his son-in-law, Mr. Samuel L. Gouverneur. 
While Congress was discussing some means for his 
relief, he died on the Fourth of July — a year after 
the death of his wife — " poor in money, but rich in 
honor." 

He was buried first in what was known as the 
Old Marble Cemetery, from which the body was 
afterwards removed to the Gouverneur family vault, 
in the Second Street Cemetery. 



MRS, MONROE. II5 

The year 1858 — the one hundredth anniversary 
of Mr. Monroe's birth — was thought to be a fitting 
time to remove his remains from the place where 
they had lain for twenty-seven years, to their final 
resting-place, in the capital of the state which gave 
him birth. 

The New York city government determined that 
the removal should be conducted with great mag- 
nificence, and also to make the occasion one of 
kindly and fraternal feeling between the authorities 
and volunteer soldiery of New York and those of 
the State of Virginia, the Secretary of State 
offered the revenue cutter, " Harriet Lane," to bear 
the remains to Richmond. 

July second, at five in the morning (an hour least 
likely to attract attention) the Committee from Vir- 
ginia, the New York Committee, the surviving rela- 
tives of the family, and some others, assembled at 
the cemetery. 

A little wren-house, which had long serv^ed as the 
only thing to mark the spot, still stood there. 

The body was taken to the Church of the Annun- 
ciation, and left there under guard. 

In the afternoon it was removed to the City Hall, 
escorted by one of the largest and most imposing 
military and civic processions the citizens of New 
York had ever witnessed. During the march the 
bells were tolled, the flags in the port were at half- 



Il6 MRS. MONROE. 

mast, and minute guns were fired. The Eighth 
Regiment stood guard during the night. In the 
morning the Seventh Regiment escorted the remains 
to the steamer, and formally delivered them to the 
Virginians. The Seventh chartered another steamer, 
and followed the " Harriet Lane " to Richmond. 

Governor Wise, with the military and city digni- 
taries, was at the wharf to receive thern. 

The body was taken to the cemetery, where the 
Governor made an address, and prayers were offered. 
While the troops rested on their arms, it was low- 
ered into the grave. 

The nation has had many a pompous funeral since, 
but at that day there had never been seen one con- 
ducted with so much magnificence and ceremony. 

The Seventh Regiment had a taste of Old Vir- 
ginia hospitality, were served in the most sumptuous 
style, and left, each side giving a three times three. 



MRS. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 

Miss Louisa Catharine Johnson was the wife of 
the sixth, and what may be called the last of the 
Presidents of the Revolution. She was born in Lon- 
don, in 1775. Her father was a native American, 
the family home in Maryland ; her uncle was gover- 
nor of that state, and signer of the Declaration of 
Independence. 

Living in England, where public feeling was against 
the colonies, where " every man," according to Frank- 
lin, ** seemed to consider himself as a piece of a sov- 
ereign over America, seemed to jostle into the throne 
of the King, and talk of our subjects in the colonies," 
was not pleasant for a man, every throb of whose 
heart was for the land of his birth. He sacrificed 
his business interests, and passed over to France, 
with his family. 

When the struggle of the Revolution w^as over, and 
England had yielded to the inevitable, he returned 
and held an office under the American government. 
His daughter. Miss Louisa Catharine, spent the 
greater part of her girlhood in London, which gave 
her unusual advantages, and she became a proficient 
in many accomplishments. 

117 



Il8 MRS. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 

John Ouincy Adams was born in the very hotbed 
of the RebelHon, was cradled by the songs of liberty ; 
Independence was the watchword of all about him. 
In Boston, he had seen the redcoats pace the street 
before his father's house, giving law to the citizens, 
even interfering with the sports of the boys, who so 
manfully stood for their rights before the stern Eng- 
lish commander that he was forced to admire them, 
and ordered his soldiers not to interfere with the 
snow-hills, nor with the sliding and skating of the 
boys. 

In the Ouincy home, young Adams had stood in 
his mother's kitchen, and seen her spoons melted 
into bullets ; had seen house and barn given up to 
the patriot soldiers. 

With a father ready to "sink or swim, live or die, 
survive or perish," for the independence of his coun- 
try, — with a mother, who, without ever a thought of 
woman's rights, bent herself with Spartan energy to 
train her boys for patriots, ready to work in the field, 
if thereby she could add one more arm to the army, 
it is not strange that this boy breathed in the love of 
liberty from the air. 

Twice, as a mere boy, he accompanied his father 
to Europe. Placed at the best of schools, he, too, 
had had uncommon advantages, and, as his exacting 
father said, "behaved like a man." Wishing to put 
an American stamp on his education, he returned at 



MRS. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. II9 

eighteen and entered an advanced class at Harvard. 
Two years later, he graduated and studied law. He 
began his eminent career in Boston, and in a four 
years' struggle, experienced all the discouragements 
a young lawyer has to face. 

As clients were few, he wrote for the press a series 
of articles, which showed so much political sagacity 
that they were supposed to have been written by his 
father. They attracted the attention of Washing- 
ton, who appointed him to represent America at the 
Hague. His diplomatic duties called him to London, 
where he first met Miss Johnson, and an intimacy 
began, which soon ripened into an engagement. 
When his father became President, his nice sense of 
honor determined him to recall his son. Better ad- 
vised by Washington, he simply transferred him to 
Berlin. At this time he fulfilled his engagement 
with Miss Johnson, and took her to that court, a 
bride. 

When Adams was to give way to Jefferson, he re- 
called his son, lest he should impose that unpleasant 
duty upon his old friend, as they differed in political 
policy. Mr. Adams settled at the corner of Tremont 
and Boylston Streets, Boston. 

It was Mrs. Adams's first introduction to New 
England, and to her husband's family. The home 
was soon broken up, and she had the pleasure of 
meeting her own relatives at the South, as Mr, 



I20 MRS. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 

Adams was elected United States senator, which 
office he finally resigned, as he and his constituents 
were not one on the Embargo question. 

When Madison came into power, he appointed him 
minister to Russia. At this time, three little ones 
claimed the mother's care, and there was a struggle. 
It ended in a resolve to go with her husband, leaving 
two children in the care of the grandparents. 

Russia, with its Peter, its Catharines, and the mad 
Paul, had hardly been considered within the pale of 
civilized countries, but, now, under the chivalrous 
bearing of the youthful Alexander, she was taking a 
prominent place in the stately march of European 
nations. Court was maintained in the most princely 
style. 

Parsimony may be an exaggerated term, but New 
Ensfland thrift and natural inclinations led Mr. and 

o 

Mrs. Adams to live as quietly as their official station 
would allow, and here was laid the foundation of their 
fortune ; also the foundation of the amicable relations 
which have ever since continued between Russia and 
America. 

Mr. and Mrs. Adams may be said to have lived 
abroad in the days of modern romance. They were 
in Russia at the battle of Borodino, — when the old 
capital was burned, when every ear was strained, lis- 
tening, lest the conqueror would knock at the gates 
of the new. 



MRS. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 121 

All Europe breathed and grew calm when Napoleon 
was banished to Elba. The war between England 
and America, however, dragged wearily on. Alexan- 
der offered to mediate, and try to bring about peace. 
Commissioners came from America, but negotiations 
failed, as England, from petty jealousy, refused to act 
in concert with Russia. The party repaired to Ghent, 
soon followed by Adams, as England consented to 
enter into nescotiations there. Circumstances com- 
pelled Mrs. Adams to remain in Russia. In the 
early spring, when Mr. Adams found he was not to 
return, he summoned her to join him in Paris. 

Now the woman showed she had true courage. 
She travelled by land from St. Petersburg to Paris, ) 
with only servants and her fourteen-year-old son. 
Alexander gave her a passport, but America had so 
risen in power that she found her best safeguard 
was in announcing herself as the wife of the Ameri- 
can minister. Stories of robbery and murder were 
told her at every stopping-place. Lawless, dis- 
banded soldiers of the worst class were scattered 
all over the continent. Once, in Courland, they 
were blocked at night by the snow, and were obliged 
to rouse the peasants to shovel them out. 

Oh that she could have wielded the facile pen, and 
possessed the glowing imagery of her mother-in-law ! 

On the way, Mrs. Adams was told the news that 
startled all Europe. Napoleon had escaped from 



122 MRS. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 

Elba. Crowned heads, nobles, and peasants sprang 
to arms. Every step was dangerous ; even a Polish 
cap on the head of a servant was a signal for a quar- 
rel. When she reached the frontiers of France, 
Napoleon was making his seven-hundred-raile march 
to the capital. 

His very name was a terror to her Russian ser- 
vants, and not one would cross the border. Once 
she was surrounded by troops so inflamed that not 
even a woman could pass without declaring her 
political faith and purpose. She appealed to the 
commander, and by his advice turned back, and, by 
a longer route, reached Paris and her husband. 

It was just after the flight of the Bourbons, and 
they were present at the entrance of Napoleon, 
beheld the adoration of the people as he was borne 
aloft in their arms, through the arched gallery of the 
Louvre, into the Tuileries. 

In May, they went to England and met the chil- 
dren from whom they had been, for six years, 
parted. A daughter had been born and buried in 
Russia. 

Mr. Adams received an appointment as minister 
to the Court of St. James, and a house was taken in 
London. 

The prophecy of Washington was fulfilled : " I 
shall be much mistaken, if, in as short a time as can 
well be expected, he (Mr. Adams) is not found at 



MRS. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. I 23 

the head of the diplomatic corps, be the govern- 
ment administered by whomsoever the people may 
choose." 

As a diplomatist and cultured man, Mr. Adams 
made a great impression, but the health of Mrs. 
Adams was delicate, and she went but little into 
society ; maybe she was glad of an excuse for not 
frequenting the court of the Regent. 

Adams had served as foreign ambassador under 
three presidents, and now a fourth summoned him 
home to the office of Secretary of State, which grati 
fied the extreme wish of his mother. During his 
term of eight years, his wife presided over his house 
with dignity and grace. She was without personal 
beauty, but she had acquired in the different courts 
of Europe an elegance of manner to which few could 
attain. According to her son, she made no exclu- 
sions in her entertainments on account of political 
hostility ; though keenly alive to the reputation of 
her husband, she sought only " to amuse and enliven 
society," and her success was admitted to be com- 
plete. 

Jackson was in Washington in the winter of 1823- 
24, and Mrs. Adams gave in his honor, on the eighth 
of January, one of the largest and most brilliant par- 
ties which had ever been given at the capital. So 
great was the enthusiasm and curiosity to see the 
man who had killed the British, that she gracefully 



124 MRS. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 

and obligingly took his arm and made a tour of her 
drawing-rooms. 

The occasion and the guests wmq commemorated 
in the following verses by Mr. Joh . f^ Agg, which 
created great interest at the time and have hardly 
yet lost their flavor. The author bore the distinc- 
tion of being the first to practise stenography in 
Washington. 

MRS. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS'S PARTY. 

JANUARY 8, 1824. 

Wend you with the world to-night? 

Brown and fair and wise and witty, 
Eyes that float in seas of light, 

Laughing mouths, and dimples pretty. 
Belles and matrons, maids and madams, 
All are gone to Mrs. Adams. 
There the mist of the future, the gloom of the past 

All melt into light, at the warm glance of pleasure, 
And the only regret is, lest, melting too fast. 

Mammas should move off in the midst of a measure. 

Wend you with the world to-night .'' 

Sixty gray and giddy twenty. 
Flirts that court, and prudes that slight, 

State coquettes and spinsters plenty. 
Mrs. Sullivan is there 

With all the charms that nature lent her. 
Gay McKim with city air 

And winning Gates and Vanderventer, 
Forsyth, with her group of graces 

Both the Crowninshields in blue ; 
The Pierces, with their heavenly faces, 

And eyes like suns that dazzle through. 
Belles and matrons, maids and madams, 
All are gone to Mrs. Adams. 



MRS. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. I25 

Wend you with the world to-night ? 

East and West, and South and North 
Form a constellation bright, 

An--^ ■ ^ur a blended brilliance forth. 
r ade of fashion flowing, 

*Tis the hour of beauty's reign- 
Webster, Hamilton are going 

Eastern Lloyd and Southern Hayne; 
Western Thomas gayly smiling, 

Borland, nature's protege. 
Young De Wolfe, all hearts beguiling, 

Morgan, Benton, Brown, and Lee. 
Belles and matrons, maids and madams. 
All are gone to Mrs, Adams. 

Wend you with the world to-night ? 

Where blue eyes are brightly glancing, 
While to measures of delight 

Fairy feet are deftly dancing ; 
Where the young Euphrosyne 

Reigns the mistress of the scene. 
Chasing gloom and courting glee. 

With the merry tambourine. 
Many a form of fairy birth, 

Many a Hebe yet unwon, 
Wirt, a gem of purest worth. 

Lively, laughing Pleasanton, 
Vails and Taylor will be there 
Gay Monroe, so debonair, 

Hellen, pleasure's harbinger, 

Ramsay, Cottringer and Kerr. 
Belles and matrons, maids and madams, 
All are gone to Mrs. Adams. 

Wend you with the world to-night.? 

Juno in her court presides. 
Mirth and melody invite, 

Fashion points, and pleasure guides 1 



126 MRS. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 

Haste away then, seize the hour 
Shun the thorn and pluck the flower, 

Youth in all its springtime blooming, 

Age, the guise of youth assuming, 
Wit, through all circles gleaming. 
Glittering wealth and beauty beaming : 

Belles and matrons, maids and madams, 

All are gone to Mrs. Adams. 

When Jackson came to t"ne capital, expecting to 
be lionored with the office of President and for the 
time bottled his wrath, Mrs. Adams, whose husband 
was the successful candidate, was very delicate and 
courteous in her attentions. 

Mr. Adams bent all his energies to make Monroe's 
administration a success ; and, at its close was chosen 
to fill his place. He may be said to have entered the 
executive mansion '' under the willows." 

As Monroe's second term began to draw towards a 
close, so did the "era of good feeling." Four candi- 
dates were ambitious to fill his place ; the Secretary 
of State, the idol of the west, the paralytic of 
Georgia, and the hero of New Orleans. There was 
just one "scramble" to be ahead. Each one was 
vilified in turn, and in the harshest terms. 

Adams was precise, cold, stiff, austere, stubborn, 
harsh, irritable, taciturn, — everything disagreeable 
that could be put into one New England Puritan ; but 
this oft-maligned individual has other qualities, and 
not one was left out in the composition of John 



MRS. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 12/ 

Quincy Adams, — he had honesty, courage, industry, 
patriotism, economy, high principles ; was the soul 
of honor, the embodiment of duty, hard-working, 
spotless in private life, and as severe upon himself as 
upon others. 

As candidate for the highest office, Adams bitterly 
said : '* It seems as if every liar and calumniator in 
the country were at work, day and night, to destroy 
my character," and then he was taunted with marry- 
ing an English wife. 

Clay loved to play cards and was dubbed a gam- 
bler ; Crawford was accused of being corrupt in his 
official duties, as Secretary of the Treasury ; Jackson 
was denounced as the author of crimes enough to 
make one's hair stand on end. 

The result of the election crowded Clay from the 
ranks, as according to the Constitution, the House 
must choose from the three candidates who shall 
have received the greatest number of votes. 

If he could not be President himself, he was the 
Speaker of the House, which gave him power and 
influence enough to say who should be. There was 
nothing in common between the brilliant, social, 
frank, generous Kentuckian and the Puritan New 
Englander, — at Ghent they could only agree to dif- 
fer. Clay said himself, if he could choose from the 
mass, he would never choose Adams, but Crawford 
could not use his fingers, seemed marked by death. 



128 MRS. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 

and the remaining candidate was that ignorant, brawl- 
ing Jackson, who disregarded law, couldn't speak in 
Congress without '' choking with rage," never did do 
any good except the killing of twenty-five hundred 
Englishmen, which certainly deserved a big reward, 
but surely not that of the Chief Magistracy of the 
United States, yet the man had received the highest 
number of electoral votes. 

Adams was chosen as the best of a poor lot, and 
it was gall and wormwood to his proud, independent 
spirit. He would rather have resigned than 
served, but did he resign, Calhoun as vice-president, 
would succeed him, and he was, to Adams, the em- 
bodiment of all that was dangerous to his country. 

Mr. Adams was the first to walk into the Ex- 
ecutive Mansion, in the way that Mrs. Madison said 
others came out. 

It was a time of quiet and prosperity ; even 
Europe was in repose. Napoleon was at St. Helena, 
and this time England made sure that there could 
be no escape. 

As the Monroes had had the honor of welcoming 
Lafayette, the Adamses had the honor of speeding 
the parting of the nation's guest. The most im- 
posing scene ever witnessed in the White House 
was on the day of his departure. Officers of the 
general government, civil, military, and naval, the 
authorities of Washington, Georgetown, and Alex- 



MRS. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 1 29 

andria, with a host of citizens and strangers were 
assembled. Men wept and embraced their guest in 
effusive French fashion. In an open barouche, 
followed by an immense procession, military bands 
of music, amid peals of artillery, he was driven to 
the banks of the Potomac, where the steamer Mount 
Vernon took him to the " Brandywine," a frigate 
named in honor of his gallant exploits, which Con- 
gress had placed at his service. 

Socially, the administration was popular. Mrs. 
Adams was petite and brilliant, buoyant in spirit, 
lively in disposition, bright and witty in conversa- 
tion. She kept up the style of the evening levees 
introduced by Mrs. Madison, and improved upon 
the quality of the refreshments offered. She pre- 
sided gracefully over the frequent dinners given 
by her husband, ignoring all subjects of controversy. 
She rigidly abstained from meddling with political 
affairs. 

Once, ladies from the extreme aristocracy of the 
South, tried to enlist her services in advancing a 
young lieutenant. She politely listened, but there 
was a keen rebuke in her answer : " Truly, ladies, 
though Mesdames Maintenon and Pompadour are 
said to have controlled the military appointments of 
their times, I do not think such matters appertain to 
women." 

Mr. Adams was icily cold in manner, would use 



130 MRS. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 

no ceremony in dismissing from his presence the 
most distinguished politicians, visiting at the capital, 
— seemed to think he should lower his self-respect 
by being even civilly polite. A note of thanks for 
a political favor, was to him as criminal as buying 
votes to many a modern politician. No man was 
ever more ambitious to be endorsed by a reelection 
than he, but he scorned to owe favor to one who 
pulled a wire for the purpose. The power to make 
friends was not one of his gifts. If there were a 
warm spot in the depths of the man's heart, as 
Edward Everett in his eulogy claimed, common 
humanity could not dive deep enough to reach it. 

His son John, who was his private secretary, had 
his father's stiffness added to the manners of — well, 
not those of a gentleman. 

At one of his mother's levees, after she had most 
politely received a lady from Boston, accompanied 
by her husband, who was the editor of a Washing- 
ton paper, belonging to the opposition, he was 
asked: ''Who is that lady.?" "That," in a voice 
intended to be heard, **is the wife of one Russell 
Jarvis, and if he knew how contemptibly he is 
viewed in this house, they would not be here." 

Mr. Jarvis stopped to inquire by whom the offen- 
sive remark was made, made his adieux to Mrs. 
Adams, and left. The next day Mr. Jarvis sent a 
note, by a friend, asking an explanation from the 



MRS. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. I3I 

young man. He told the bearer, that he had no 
apology to make to Mr. Jarvis, and that he wished 
for no correspondence with him ; considering his 
personal relations with the President, he had no right 
to be at the drawing-room. 

Soon after, Mr. Jarvis met the insolent youth in 
the Capitol, pulled his nose and slapped his face. 

Master John complained to papa, who sent a 
special message to Congress, detailing the affair. 
Committees were appointed and out of respect to 
the President, they went over the pros and cons of 
the fray, but neither punishment nor censure fell 
upon Mr. Jarvis. 

After the rebuilding of the Executive Mansion, 
a handsome sum was appropriated for decorating 
it, but by an embezzlement a large part was lost, 
and the Adamses found it meagrely furnished and 
what there was in a very shabby condition. From 
the appropriation made upon the advent of Mr. 
Adams, he bought a billiard-table for his son. The 
purchase was commented on with so much severity 
that the president paid the bill from his private 
purse. 

Master John, of unenviable notoriety was married 
in the White House, to his mother's niece. Miss 
Mary Hellen. Solomon said, "there is a time to 
dance," and at this marriage the solemn President 
evidently thought the time had come, and went 



132 MRS. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 

through a Virginia reel with the spirit inspired by 
wedding rites. 

Mr. Adams's administration was a period of great 
national prosperity ; the first railroad was built, 

and the Erie Canal opened. 

There was a new subject of contention between 
the North and South, — this time it was a protective 
tariff, or the "American System," as some were 
pleased to call it ; however, the country remained 
intact, as it has through many a severer test, but this 
was the hinge on which the coming election was to 
turn. 

Jackson was elected, and John Ouincy Adams was 
a bitterly disappointed man. It was usual and cour- 
teous for the President-elect to pay his respects to 
the President in power, especially would it have been 
becoming for this one, who had been frequently dined , 
by the President, and had received civilities from his; 
lady in former days. 

Now, Jackson was bowed with grief for the loss of 
his wife. An official organ had traduced her, and 
this was the one sin for which he forgave no man, 
and he believed that the President had at least 
prompted the article. 

Adams could never rise to the height of magnan- 
imity, and pettily retaliated by absenting himself 
from the inaugural ceremonies. 

Surely, " A chip of the old block ; " John Adams 



c 



MRS. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 1 33 

had done the same thing — both great, both can- 
tankerous. 

Mr. Adams left the Executive Mansion on the third 
of March, and was taking his daily horseback ride, 
when the booming of cannon announced that his 
successor had taken the oath of office. 

The family returned to New England, and two 
years later he was chosen representative to Congress. 
With the man trained by Abigail Adams, it w^as duty 
to serve his country. It was the first time an ex- 
president had entered that Hall as a member. For 
sixteen years, through Jackson's, Van Buren's, Harri- 
son's, Tyler's, and Polk's terms, he kept his seat. 
During this period, Mrs. Adams lived a quiet, secluded 
fe, happy in husband and home. Of her four child- 
ren only one son, Charles Francis Adams, remained. 

The old man had turned fourscore, but the grass- 
hopper never became a burden. The 20th of Febru- 
ary, 1848 was Sunday. At morning and evening 
service he was in his place ; a third service was in his 
library, where Mrs. Adams read a sermon of Bishop 
Wilberforce's, on ''Time." In the morning he went 
to the Capitol with unwonted alacrity, wrote a poem, 
twice gave his autograph, voted, and without warning 
fell, stricken with paralysis, into the arms of a mem- 
ber near him. There came a gleam of consciousness, 
and he asked for his wife, who sat by his side, then 
he relapsed. He roused once more, only to say. 



134 MRS. JOHN QUINCY AUAMS. 

" This is the last of earth. I am content." He lin- 
gered until the evening of the third day. 

Beneath the dome of the Capitol, in the field of his 
labors, trials, and triumphs, the *' golden bowl was 
broken, and the silver cord loosed." Fortunate in 
his lineage, place of nativity, education, age, country, 
and in his death, A son from each state and terri- 
tory in the Union bore his body in solemn triumph 
to New England, and in Faneuil Hall consigned it to 
the citizens of Massachusetts, who placed it in the 
tomb at Quincy. 

All his life he had practised economy, and conse- 
quently left a large estate. Mrs. Adams had learned 
to prefer New England to the South. She returned 
to the family residence, and lived, surrounded by 
grandchildren and relatives, four more years, and 
died at the age of seventy-seven. 

A distinguished visitor at her home wrote : " Mrs, 
Adams is described in a word — a lady. She has all 
the warmth of heart and ease of manner, that mark 
the character of Southern ladies." A member of her 
own family has written that her varied accomplish- 
ments made her the ornament of the home circle, but 
there was little in her private life that can be of 
interest to the public. As the wife of John Quincy 
Adams, the " old man eloquent," and as an elegant 
lady of the White House, her name will ever be dis- 
tinguished in the annals of history. 



MRS. JACKSON. 

Late in December, 1789, a party of emigrants 
from Virginia went by water to Tennessee. The 
windings of the river made the distance more than 
two thousand miles, and they were four months on 
the way. It was a hard, perilous journey; to the 
severity of the season was added fear of the Indians 
who lurked along the banks. Twenty-eight of the 
party were captured. Children were born and died. 

At the mouth of the Ohio, the hardships, the 
swift current, and the unknown dangers, struck dis- 
may into the hearts of many, and they sailed down 
the Mississippi to Natchez. 

The leader of the party was Captain Donelson, a 
bold backwoodsman, who had with him his family, 
among whom was his daughter, a girl twelve years 
old, brown-skinned, black-eyed, and full of vivacity, 
capable of taking the helm or leading a dance on the 
flat boat. 

Having reached what is now Nashville, the party 
settled in log houses, built by men sent on a few 
months earlier to prepare the way. They laid out 
farms and lived the hard life of pioneers, always 

^35 



136 MRS. JACKSON. 

harassed by Indians. Amid such surroundings, 
Rachael Donelson sprang to womanhood. 

At a time of short crops and great scarcity, Cap- 
tain Donelson took his family to Kentucky, where 
food was more abundant. There, Lewis Robards, a 
young backwoodsman, saw and admired his pretty 
daughter, and, after a short wooing, married and 
took her to his mother's I02: cabin. 

Whether it were true love or not, it did not run 
smooth. The story-telling, the gayety, and high 
spirits, which had been so winning in the girl, the 
husband denounced as something worse than impro- 
prieties in the wife. Stormy scenes often took 
place, and finally he left her. His mother always 
took Rachael's side, which would hardly have been 
the case, if Lewis's jealousy had been well founded. 

The deserted wife went to her father's house 
in Nashville, to which the family had returned. 
Robards came too, owned his jealousy had been 
foolish, through friends gained his wife's pardon, 
and became an inmate of the block house. Cap- 
tain Donelson had been killed a few months before 
by the Indians, and now his wife kept the best 
boarding-house in the place. 

Among the boarders was a singular-looking man, 
over six feet high, lank in figure, red-haired, uncouth 
in dress, a swearing, gambling, cock-fighting fellow, 
called Andrew Jackson. Out of this unpleasant 



MRS. JACKSON. I37 

exterior, shone a pair of dark blue, deep-set eyes, 
eyes that could just blaze when turned upon a foe, 
but melt into tenderness when turned upon a 
woman, with whom he always bore the air of a 
protector. When he drew up his tall, spare figure, 
there was a sort of majesty in his presence that 
commanded respect, and, with his bluff, frank hon- 
esty, won hirn a host of friends, even among the 
better class. 

Soon Robards declared the melting eyes of this 
fellow were turned too often upon his wife, and hers 
flashed love in return. To keep the peace, Jackson 
left the house, but the husband was not appeased. 
His jealous remarks were repeated to Jackson, who 
fell into one of his terrible rasres, sou2:ht out the 
husband, told him if he ever again connected his 
name with Mrs. Robards, he would cut his ears from 
his head, — indeed he was tempted to do it before 
he had a chance to repeat his words. 

His frenzy frightened Robards, who slunk away to 
the offlce of a justice of the peace and swore out a 
warrant. Jackson was arrested, and a guard called to 
take him to the court, the jealous husband follow- 
ing in the rear. The prisoner asked from one of the 
guard, the loan of a knife ; the man refusing, he 
promised on honor to hurt no one. It was handed 
to him ; he examined the edge, felt the point, all the 
time flashing his blazing eyes on his accuser. In 



138 MRS. JACKSON. 

those wild days, the man dared not rely on the law, 
and in his terror took to his heels. Jackson fol- 
lowed for some distance, then came back and walked 
quietly into court.. The case was called, but as there 
was no complainant, he was discharged. 

Robards again deserted his wife and left the state. 
Absence made her dearer, and again he came back 
and sued for pardon. Twice accused and twice for- 
saken, the woman rose, threw back scorn for scorn. 
To escape him, she planned a visit to Natchez. 
A sail down the Mississippi in those days was full 
of danger, and Jackson, always chivalrous to women, 
especially to this one, forsaken on his account, 
offered to be her protector. The journey was safely 
made and he left her with her friends. 

Soon came the story that the enraged husband had 
gained a divorce in Virginia. Jackson lost no time 
in asking to fill the husband's place, — maybe the 
woman's heart had been won before, — any way, 
there was a marriage. For the first time, Racliael 
had a log cabin of her own, and had a husband who 
was not only tender, but treated her with a sort of 
reverence, as if she were something holy, like the 
devotion of the olden knights, of which we read in 
the days of chivalry. 

Two years later, the pair were startled by hearing 
that Robards had at first simply filed a complaint, 
and that the divorce had just been granted on the 



MRS. JACKSON. 1 39 

ground of open adultery. Jackson's face blanched, 
and he swore '' by the Eternal," his favorite oath, 
that the woman was his lawful wife before God and 
man, but he was a prudent man ; a second time the 
pair stood before a priest and repeated their marriage 
vows. 

Mrs. Jackson was among the first in the social 
scale, and lost no caste by this unfortunate affair. 
The towns-people had heard what she had heard, had 
believed, as she had believed, — that she was free to 
marry. Had Jackson lived the life of a Tennessee 
planter, it might not have mattered, but, alas for the 
woman, his career led to fame. 

If she had as Robards said, let her eyes speak love 
to Jackson, when such speaking had been traitorous 
to him, her wedded husband, he was avenged in her 
last days. 

But one man ever dared allude to this irregularity 
in Jackson's presence, and he had reason to wish he 
had never been born. 

Jackson ripped out oaths enough to curdle one's 
blood, swore "by the Eternal" he would take his 
life; shots were fired in the public street, but the 
man escaped. Again Jackson met him on the high- 
way, called upon him to defend himself, and fell on 
him with such fury that the man's life was only 
saved by the help of some passing travellers. To 
speak ill of his wife was likened to the sin against 
the Holy Ghost, — unpardonable. 



140 MRS. JACKSON. 

Jackson came to Tennessee as a lawyer, but ac- 
quired no fame. In payment for services he took 
land, the common currency of the country, forsook 
the law, and turned planter. 

The Tennesseans felt ill-used by government, and 
sent Jackson as representative to Congress, feeling 
sure, from his fearless, indomitable will, their claims 
would be pushed with spirit. 

The cultured, European Gallatin described him at 
that time as tall, lank, uncouth, with long red locks 
hanging over his face ; queue down his back, tied in 
an eel skin ; dress singular ; manners those of a rough 
backwoodsman ; but his person and manners, like rare 
diamonds, were capable of taking an immense polish. 
As representative, his conduct was highly approved 
by his constituents, and the next year he was re- 
turned as senator. The life was so distasteful, he 
resio'ned after one cession. 

o 

The same year, he was appointed Judge of the Su- 
preme Court of the State. He held the office six 
years, and his conduct was ever in keeping with the 
man. 

Once an offender resisted arrest, — " Summon a 
posse," shouted the judge ; the sheriff did so, came 
back, said the man was armed, and could not be taken. 

"■ Since you can't obey my orders, Mr. Sheriff, 
summon me," thundered the judge. Had the man 
disobeyed, he might have been shot. 



MRS. JACKSON. I4I 

The judge adjourned the court ten minutes, — out 
he strode ; before the time expired, he was in his 
seat, the prisoner in the dock. 

He had personal quarrels by the score. At one 
time he caned a man ; another, fought a duel. Dick- 
inson fell at his fire, and, so deadly was his purpose, 
that he said : '' I should have hit him, if he had shot 
me through the brain." 

The quarrel was one of long standing. Dickinson 
was the best shot in the county, and it was said he 
kept in constant practice for this very duel. 

It was fought in a secluded place, far from town, to 
which both parties repaired the day previous. 

Dickinson kissed his young wife at parting, and 
said, " I shall surely be at home to-morrow night, 
darling." 

At an early hour, principals, seconds, and sur- 
geons, rode to the fatal spot. The polite courtesies 
of such occasions were strictly observed. 

The arrangement of the seconds was, that the men 
should be placed eight paces apart, and each should 
stand at the mark until he had received one shot ; at 
the word " fire," each should fire as soon as he pleased. 
Dickinson was the quicker and sent the first shot, — 
Jackson stood erect, — " Good God, have I missed 
him ! " exclaimed Dickinson. 

Jackson slowly raised his pistol and took deliberate 
aim — the pistol stopped, half cocked. 



142 • MRS. JACKSON. 

In the excitement Dickinson fell back. "Back to 
the mark, you scoundrel," shouted Jackson's second. 
Back he stepped, and Jackson aimed the second time ; 
the man fell mortally wounded. 

All the long hours of that summer day he writhed 
in agony ; at night came the young wife, only to find 
him hushed in death. 

To the world of to-day, the whole thing was brutal, 
but even at that time there was a howl of rage, that 
a man should have taken a second chance. 

Jackson himself was wounded, but such was his 
nerve and pride, he walked erect from the field, lest 
his dying foe should have the satisfaction of knowing 
his shot had told. Yet (it seems as if it were mock 
politeness), he sent wine and the offer of the services 
of his own surgeon. 

His wound never healed well, and though he lived 
to be an old man, it was Dickinson's bullet that caused 
his death. 

His domestic life was perfect. Mrs. Jackson was 
jovial, fond of dancing, riding, full of anecdotes, a 
famous story-teller, happy herself, and a source of 
happiness to all about her. 

They had but one grief ; both loved and desired 
children and children were denied them. Jackson 
had no relatives, but those of his wife were like the 
sands of the sea for multitude. 

To one brother were born twin boys. Mrs. Jack- 



MRS. JACKSON. I43 

son took one home, hoping thereby to provide a son 
for her husband. He became dotingly fond of the 
boy, gave him his own name, and made him his heir. 
The boy proved, next his wife, the delight of his Hfe, 
and the hope of his old age. 

Another Andrew, a nephew, was taken home and 
educated. Beside these, a merry crew of nephews 
and nieces were always flitting about, always wel- 
come. 

The Creek Indians, armed and incited by the 
British, had massacred the garrison at Fort Minis. 
The militia of Tennessee were called out, and Jack- 
son given the command. Now the man had found 
his place. He was born to be a military hero. 

By skill and celerity of movement, he enclosed the 
Creeks in a trap at Horse Shoe Bend. The battle 
began. Not an Indian would ask or accept of quar- 
ter. In a few hours the massacre of Fort Mims was 
avenged, the power of the Creeks broken, and Jack- 
son famous. 

He tarnished his fame by executing a mutinous 
lad — he was only seventeen, and ignorant of mili- 
tary rules. He meant no wrong, but was roughly 
and unreasonably ordered about by his superior. 
His spirit rose and he refused obedience. 

In 1 8 14, Jackson was appointed brigadier-general, 
and sent to New Orleans, where the British seemed 
to threaten an attack. Dism.ay filled every heart. 



144 MRS. JACKSON. 

The women prepared for flight : wore poniards, de- 
termined to die rather than fall into the hands of the 
soldiery, fresh from the atrocities in Spain, where the 
watchword had been "beauty and booty." 

Soon the news flew, Jackson — Jackson the terri- 
ble — had come; held in dread, yet his presence 
breathed safety. 

He calmed the fair Creoles, swore by the Eternal, 
the enemy should never enter the place, unless it 
were over his dead body. 

As a boy he had seen and felt the cruelties of 
Tarleton, and in fury had said, " Oh, if I were a man, 
how I would sweep down the British with my grass- 
blade ! " He had never forgotten, and now his time 
had come. It was his first battle against a civilized 
foe and he was armed with hatred, often exclaiming, 
'' I will smash them, so help me God," 

The enemy, twelve thousand strong, trained in the 
Peninsula, were led by Pakenham, bearing the scars 
of many a victorious battle, a hero at Salamanca and 
Radajoz, brother-in-law and favorite of Wellington. 

Jackson had less than six thousand men, raw 
militia and citizens of New Orleans, many without 
arms. 

For two weeks, both sides prepared for the strife ; 
one with sand and sugar, the other with sand and 
cotton bags ; the sugar proving even a more fatal 
mistake than the cotton. 



MRS. JACKSON. I45 

As the sun struggled through the fog on the eighth 
of January, the enemy were seen, coming on at 
steady British pace. 

The American line, looking like a row of fiery fur- 
naces, drove them back at the first fire. Under the 
brave Highlanders, they rallied, and with Pakenham 
at their head rushed on like the *' six hundred," 
" into the jaws of death." 

In twenty-five minutes the rout was complete ; 
seven hundred killed, anions: whom was the renowned 
Pakenham ; fourteen hundred wounded, and five hun- 
dred prisoners. So panic stricken had been the 
men, they had fallen prostrate among the dead and 
wounded. Jackson went upon the field, and as they 
rose one by one, he likened it to the rising from the 
dead on the last day, and ever after felt equal to de- 
scribing the resurrection, as if it had passed, and he 
had been an eyewitness. 

The city was delirious with joy. If Jackson had 
been a hero before, he was a demigod now. He 
executed six militia men, but he had saved New 
Orleans, avenoed the burnins: of Wash in "'ton, re- 
stored the lustre to American arms, so dimmed on 
the Atlantic coast. 

Henry Clay said he could now go to England with- 
out humiliation. 

During his triumphant stay in New Orleans, his 
wife and little son joined him. Mrs. Jackson had 



146 MRS, JACKSON. 

grown coarse and stout — the brunette beauty of her 
girlhood had changed to the look of a half-breed. 
Homely in speech and in costume — by the side of 
her elegant husband, now an adept in drawing-room 
arts, she might have been taken for a servant, had 
it not been for the marked attention he paid her — 
seemed blind to her homely bearing and country 
manners. 

In all companies and upon all occasions, he gave 
proof that his "bonny brown wife" was to him the 
dearest and most revered of human beings. 

The elegant Creoles took the cue — made much of 
her ; gave her jewelry (the topaz jewelry that is seen 
in her portrait at the Hermitage), prepared silks and 
satins for the dinners and parties given in honor of 
the general. To see the pair dance was something 
grotesque ; but how she enjoyed the honors paid her 
husband ! The little Andrew was the pet of the 
ladies and of the soldiers — everywhere at home. 

The journey to Nashville was one continued 
ovation. 

A year later Mrs. Jackson became a Presbyterian 
convert, — her letters are those of a canting devotee, 
but her daily life was proof of her sincerity ; always 
strict in her duties, kind to the poor, and to all about 
her, now she aimed to live the higher life. 

To please her, Jackson built a church on the 
estate, and his house was a home for all clergymen 



MRS. JACKSON. I47 

of her creed. He sympathized in her new resolves, 
took part in all her plans, only holding himself aloof. 
His conversation was always mixed with oaths, but 
if his wife asked him to crave a blessing at table, he 
bowed his head, did it in the most reverent manner, 
then went on with the half-finished oath, as if there 
had been no such interlude. 

When the church was finished, he built the Her- 
mitage, the finest house in the state, as a love gift 
to his wife. When some one suggested that higher 
land would be a better site, " No, Mrs. Jackson chose 
this spot, the house is for her and it shall be where 
she says," was his reply. 

In the Seminole war, he was sent to Florida, then 
owned by Spain. In forty-six days the war was 
ended, but he had nearly embroiled England and 
America in a new war by taking Pensacola, a 
Spanish town, and executing Arbuthnot and Am- 
bister ; one an Englishman, the other a Scotchman. 

Upon the purchase of Florida in 1821, Jackson 
was sent to receive the transfer, with rank of gover- 
nor, which to him meant autocrat. 

Now he embroils his country with Spain, by put- 
ting the ex-governor. Colonel Callava, a Spanish 
grandee, into the calaboose, and ordering all Spanish 
officers who had remained to leave within four days, 
under penalty of arrest. 

John Quincy Adams, whose duty it was as diplom- 



148 MRS. JACKSON. 

atist, to smooth foreign powers, used to say he 
dreaded the coming of a mail from Florida — not 
knowing what Jackson might do next. 

Mrs. Jackson, who was with him, had looked on 
with horror at the shameless Sabbath breaking 
under Spanish rule ; stores, theatres, and gambling 
houses all open — a "Godless land" she writes her 
friends. The Sunday before the transfer, she gave 
out word it was the last that would be so desecrated, 
and sure enough, her lord, to please her, put the 
place under strict Puritan rule ; even swearing was 
his sole prerogative. 

Mrs. Jackson wrote home : — 

*' Yesterday I had the happiness of witnessing the 
truth of what I had said. Great order was observed ; 
the doors kept shut, the gambling houses demolished, 
fiddling and dancing not heard any more on the 
Lord's day ; cursing not to be heard. ... I have 
heard .but one gospel sermon since I left home. 
Do not be uneasy for me. 'Although the vine 
yield no fruit, and the olive no oil, yet I will serve 
the Lord.' " 

In 1824, Jackson was one of the four candidates 
for the presidency : neither had the majority re- 
quired and the election went to the House of Rep- 
resentatives. The General and Mrs. Jackson went 
in a coach and six to Washington. As he had the 
crreatest number of electoral votes, he expected the 



MRS. JACKSON. 1 49 

House would decide in his favor, but, through Clay's 
influence, Adams was chosen. 

Jackson had at first avowed his unfitness for the 
office, but the honor of the position and the sense of 
power — power as Jie only dared to use it, always the 
sweetest morsel to him, had come to be a craving. 
He hatd come in the pride of success to see the high 
place given to another. He dissembled his wrath, 
but it was all bottled, to be poured out in unstinted 
measure upon the heads of those who had defrauded 
him, if ever his day of power came. 

It was Mrs. Jackson's first visit to the capital. 
The multitude of churches and the able pastors 
filled her with delight — yet, Washington was an 
unholy place in her eyes. She wrote home, "The 
play-actors have sent me a letter requesting my 
countenance. No. Tickets come, to balls and 
parties. No, not one. Mr. Jackson encourages me 
and wishes me to remain steadfast." In another 
letter she admits she has been to a playhouse, but 
adds that if her friends could know what she suf- 
fered and the loathing she felt, they would forgive 
her. 

Her visit was at the time when Lafayette was 
the nation's guest ; he treated this uncultured woman 
with the greatest attention and respect. He had 
tasted her hospitality at the Hermitage, and seen her 
sweetness and beneficence to all about her. 



150 MRS. JACKSON. 

It seemed impossible for her to catch a grace from 
contact with refined society. 

Once, when an army officer was visiting the gen- 
eral, she sat down by his side with her corn-cob pipe, 
after taking a few whiffs, passed it, and said, 
"Honey, won't you take a smoke.'*" 

She had always been opposed to her husband's 
holding office, and had left the Hermitage with bitter 
regret ; the pleasure of the return was only alloyed 
by the general's disappointment. 

In 1828, Jackson was again a nominee for the 
presidency, and never was there so bitter a contest. 

Now, Mrs. Jackson began to reap the fruits of her 
early indiscretion. 

Every paper of the opposition was crowded with 
the events of Jackson's life. The shooting of 
Dickinson and his military executions were called 
murders. The paragraph which preceded all others, 
headed by the largest capitals, was, " Marriage Be- 
fore Divorce." 

Mrs. Jackson had long had an affection of the 
heart, and excitement brought on spasms. That her 
good name should be trailed in the mire, that, by 
any act of hers, her adored husband should be 
taunted with shame, increased her malady to an 
alarming degree. She said nothing, but her face 
bore traces of tears and suffering. When the con- 
test was over, she said, " I am glad for Mr. Jackson ; 



MRS. JACKSON. I5I 

for myself, I never wished it." She shrank from the 
Hfe in the White House more than ever. Her hus- 
band had tried to keep every abusive line from her 
sight and, now that the election was settled, hoped 
the subject of "marriage before divorce" would be 
dropped, and all would be well. 

In December, after a day's shopping in town, she 
was resting at a hotel, waiting for her carriage, — 
two women sat in the next room ; one told the other 
the story of the twice-repeated marriage of the 
President-elect. It was told in coarse language, with 
abusive epithets and cruel exaggeration. 

" An adulteress — a bigamist ! " 

The words burned into her very soul. The ex- 
citement brought on the terrible pain. For sixty 
hours she lay writhing in agony, struggling for 
breath. Jackson never left her side. 

On the twenty-third, the towns-people were to give 
a grand dinner, in honor of the general's success. 

Mrs. Jackson remembered it, and at the first 
moment of ease and recovered breath she spoke of 
it and begged him to leave her and take some rest. 

He kissed and bade her good night. In a few 
moments there was a long, low cry, — he sprang to 
her side, but the " mortal had put on immortality." 

He would not believe it, would have her bled ; as 
no blood flowed, ordered one to try her temple, stood 
over her, rubbed her. When told that all had been 



152 MRS. JACKSON. 

done that could be done, and she must be prepared 
for burial, he asked one to spread many blankets, 
pathetically saying, " If she do come to, she will lie 
so hard." 

All night he sat by her side, looking into her 
face, feeling her heart and pulse. All the next day 
it was the same ; he only took a little coffee brought 
by loving hands. At times he would snatch the 
body in his arms and hold it tightly to his bosom 
until pitying friends forced it from his embrace. 

The table for the triumphant banquet was well- 
nigh spread, when a messenger from the Hermitage 
rode into town, changing joy into mourning. 

Nashville ladies arrayed the body for burial in 
the white satin prepared for the inaugural ball, with 
kid gloves and slippers. Pearl necklace and ear- 
rings were the finishing touch, but these were re- 
moved at the request of a niece. 

Mrs. Jackson was buried at the foot of the Her- 
mita^re sfardcn ; the General, too exhausted to walk, 
was supported by his friends. The house and farm 
servants were all present, shrieking and giving way 
to the most demonstrative grief. Such a scene was 
said to have never never been witnessed. 

Jackson inscribed on her tablet: "Her face was 
fair, her person pleasing, her temper amiable, her heart 
kind. ... A being so gentle and so virtuous, slander 
might wound but could not dishonor. Even death, 



MRS. JACKSON. 1 53 

when he tore her from the arms of her husband, 
could but transport her to the bosom of her God." 

Amid the grief felt for this truly good woman, 
there was a sense of relief that she was never to 
preside over the Executive Mansion. 

Her death wrought a change in Jackson, at least 
he did not swear any more ; only under intense ex- 
citement and extreme provocation the " by the 
Eternal " would sometimes slip out. He went to 
church, read his Bible, and said his prayers before 
his wife's picture, as the Catholics do before the 
Virgin, avowing if she weren't in Heaven, he didn't 
wish to go there. 

The inauguration was unlike any that had pre- 
ceded it. The President-elect rode to the Capitol 
on his own favorite horse, surrounded by the mili- 
tary, bands playing and artillery booming. The 
debut into the Executive Mansion was made, at- 
tended by a motley crowd, which soon became a 
noisy mob. Barrels of punch had been provided, 
were drained to the lees, and the glasses smashed, 
the scene ending in a disgraceful, drunken row ; 
even the person of the President had to be protected 
from the mob by his friends. 

If Jackson were bowed with grief and had ''aged 
twenty years in a night," his spirit for managing 
the affairs of the nation was not all impaired, and 
he entered upon his duties with such vigor and 



154 ^^S. JACKSON. 

determination that he alarmed his foes and amazed 
his friends, who seemed to think, as Webster said, 
that the country was rescued from some dreadful 
danger. 

He deemed it to be his first duty to ferret out and 
take vengeance, by political decapitation, upon all, 
who had spoken against his wife; the next, upon 
those who had actively differed from himself, or 
had doubted his policy in Florida ; when these two 
sweet morsels were well rolled under his tongue, he 
made a clean sweep of all the office-holders left, for 
the benefit of his friends and his wife's relatives — 
simply "rotation in office" — "to the victor belong 
the spoils," said the recipients of his bounty. 

The tariff, at first distasteful to the South, was fast 
becoming an abomination ; the North was more 
prosperous, and she took the ground that she was 
assisting it to be so at her own expense. 

South Carolina didn't say this time that she was 
o^oino: to blot out her star and sit outside of the 
Union ; oh no, she was simply going to refuse to 
obey one of the laws of the United States, which 
worked unfavorably for her section, the President 
was a Southern man and would naturally be mindful 
of Southern interests, and of course the law would 
be repealed. 

The first insight South Carolina obtained of the 
President's leaning was by an ominous toast given 



MRS. JACKSON. 1 55 

for a dinner celebrating Jefferson's birthday: "The 
Federal Union — it must be preserved." He gave 
it more significance by saying " must and shall." 
His shall and shan't were so vigorously backed up, 
that the words had more than an ordinary meaning, 
but the ' shall ' this time was omitted for the press. 

The legislature of South Carolina convened and 
put her decision before the country by passing an 
ordinance declaring the tariff null and void, em- 
phasizing it by little threats, which played around 
Jackson's political horizon as harmlessly as heat 
lightning on a summer's evening. 

The governor endorsed the legislature, and the 
first day of February was the time when obedience 
was to end, and if need were, resistance to begin. 
He made an address full of hio^h-soundins; words, 
claiming that the laws of the state were paramount 
for her citizens ; talked loudly of the footsteps of 
invaders, — of the sacred soil, stained by the blood of 
her sons. If other states stood aloof in enforcing 
" reform," South Carolina would proudly stand 
** alone." "Given a fair field," she would defy the 
majesty of the United States ; if she should succeed 
in this Herculean scheme, hers would be "glory 
enough," and if she failed, the "entire South, nay, 
the whole Union " would "attest her virtues." 

Volunteers sprang to arms, ready to march at a 
moment's notice. The women were as full of en- 



156 MRS. JACKSON. 

thusiasm as Southern women usually are in time of 
war. Husbands and lovers wore blue cockades 
adorned by palmetto buttons made and pinned on 
by their fair fingers, — its mate worn upon their own 
bosoms. 

In the early stage, the President had, apparently, 
calmly noted events, saying in his homely phrase- 
ology, "If this go on, our country will be like a bag 
of meal, with both ends open. Pick it up in the 
middle, or endwise, it will run out." However, 
many a secret order had he given, and the military 
and naval force of the country were stationed at 
the South and prepared for celerity of movement. 

By the middle of January, the treasonable proc- 
lamation of South Carolina's governor reached 
Washington, with additional particulars. The sons 
of the ''sacred soil," had gone so far as to strike off 
medals, inscribed with the name of John Catiline 
Calhoun, as ''first president of the Southern Con- 
federacy." A flag was designed and ready to be 
flung to the breeze ; they had hung the United 
States' flag with the stars downward, hoping, perhaps, 
that they would fall away, as the meal from the bag. 

Calhoun had resigned the vice-presidency to take 
a seat in the senate. A few weeks before he had 
come from South Carolina, and his journey has been 
likened to that of Luther's to the Diet of Worms. 
Could he, would he take the oath to support the 



MRS. JACKSON. I 57 

Constitution of the United States, was the question 
of the day. '* The floor of the senate chamber and 
the galleries were thronged with spectators. They 
saw him take the oath with a solemnity and dignity 
appropriate to the occasion, and then calmly seat 
himself on the right of the chair, among his old 
political friends, nearly all of whom were now 
arrayed against him." 

.Only traitors did Andrew Jackson hate worse 
than the British. He had suspected Calhoun, and 
now he was sure that the arch-nullifier was bent on 
mischief. He resolved and openly avowed that at 
the first act of resistance to law in South Carolina, 
he should be taken as prisoner of State and tried for 
treason, — indeed every member of Congress from 
that state was to be held responsible. 

Jackson issued a proclamation and asked from 
Congress an enlargement of the executive power, 
which was granted by a bill called the Force Bill, — 
by South Carolina, the Bloody Bill. The first day of 
February came and went, duties were collected, 
blood wasn't spilled and guns weren't fired. Is 
anybody frightened ? was asked. Some said Cal- 
houn was, and others said that the enthusiastic rally 
round Jackson convinced him that nullification, as 
well as secession, would be met by force, and force 
sufficient to make it on the winning side. 

Twelve days of excitement and expectancy went 



158 MRS. JACKSON. 

by and South Carolina wasn't quite sure on what 
day nullification would practically begin. 

The President in his messao;'e had su^^ofested a 
modification of the tariff, and Henry Clay, who was 
always tinkering at the cracks in the Union, brought 
forward his famous Compromise Bill, offering a 
gradual reduction of the tariff. It was an easy way 
out of the difficulty, but there was an amendment 
tacked on to it by those in the manufacturing in- 
terest, making provision for home valuation, which 
made it very humiliating for the Calhoun party to 
vote for it. 

The opposition insisted that they should, lest in 
time they might repudiate it ; they still held off, and 
the Protectionists threatened to defeat the measure. 
Clayton of Delaware said : " If they cannot vote for 
a bill to save their necks from a halter, their necks 
may stretch." The bill with the amendment did 
finally pass supported by the nullifiers, and South 
Carolina repealed her ordinance. 

From the beginning of his administration, Jackson 
had had a prejudice against the United States Bank. 
The more attention he paid to it, the worse he 
thought it to be ; believed it was insolvent, believed 
it was a political machine; thought "credit, crime ; 
and banking, robbery," and he resolved to remove 
the public deposits. There was a tremendous ojjpo- 
sition. 



MRS. JACKSON. I 59 

To-day, the measure is thought to have been a 
wise one, but as there was no organized plan for the 
management of the government finances, it occa- 
sioned great distress and a financial panic. Jackson 
was assailed on all sides. Clay called the measure 
an "open, palpable, and daring usurpation." Cal- 
houn said worse things and Webster opposed, but 
more temperately. Petitions and memorials were 
sent Jackson from all parts of the Union. To one 
deputation he said, *' If the people send ten thou- 
sand memorials, signed by all the men, women, and 
children in the land, and bearing the names of all 
on the gravestones, I will not relax a particle from 
my position." 

Clay offered a vote of censure, which the Senate 
approved, but the undaunted President stood by his 
colors and declared himself to be the " direct repre- 
sentative of the American people." One of the 
cabinet said there was " no Secretary of State, no 
Senate, no anybody save Andrew Jackson." So he 
went on, in his ignorant, hot-headed way, and sowed 
the seeds of the terrible disaster which came later, 
and thousands upon thousands lost their all, and the 
working classes, left without employment, were 
reduced to absolute beggary. 

Benton worked, as if it were the object for which 
he was born, to expunge from the record of the Sen- 
ate, the vote of censure against Andrew Jackson. 



l60 MRS. JACKSON, 

It was finally clone by a vote of twenty-four to nine- 
teen, and broad black lines were drawn around it, as 
if it were put into mourning for ever being written. 
*' Expunged by order of the Senate, this sixteenth 
day of January, in the year of our Lord, 1837," was 
written across it. 

"The gratification of the President was extreme," 
and "he gave a grand dinner to the expungers and 
their wives." 

Another difficulty loomed up in this stormy 
administration. In the settlement with Napoleon 
for injuries done to American shipping, a large 
indemnity had been claimed, and the justice of 
it admitted by the French, but the amount was 
never settled and the claim had never been 
pushed. 

Jackson had paid his own debts by selling prop- 
erty at a sacrifice, and he meant that individuals and 
nations with whom he had to deal should pay theirs. 
He pushed these claims so vigorously that Louis 
Philippe arranged a treaty by which five million 
dollars were to be paid in six instalments, and the 
dates of payment fixed. Pay day came, but no 
money ; the plea was that no appropriation had 
been made by the French Chambers. A lame 
excuse to offer Andrew Jackson! His Irish blood 
was up, and in his annual message he blazed away 
about passing a law authorizing "reprisals" upon 



MRS. JACKSON. t6i 

French property, if the money were not forthcoming-, 
toitte suite. 

Debtors often mount high horses, if creditors 
under the pressure of their wrongs are a Httle 
savage. The French took the ground that they 
had been wantonly insulted, that the message was 
almost an open declaration of war. They weren't 
to be coerced into honesty, they wouldn't pay at all, 
— withdrew their minister and sent home ours. 
They little knew with whom they had to deal ! 

Jackson and Clay were bitter enemies, but Clay 
was a patriot, and with his silvery-toned eloquence 
and conciliatory way of putting things, he some- 
what appeased the French frenzy, and they went 
so far as to say that the claim should be paid at 
once, if an apology were offered for the threats 
which had been made. Jackson would sooner have 
been drawn in quarters than have made one, but he 
was persuaded to say that his message was not 
meant as a "menace," but there was no abatement 
of determination or tone that the money sJiould be 
paid, come what might. He urged an increase of 
the navy and the completion of all the coast de- 
fences, and for once the opposition gave him sup- 
port. Things looked more warlike than ever. 

England, who had helped us into the difficulty, 
interposed with her good offices to help us out by 
mediation. Jackson blandly accepted, but emphati- 



l62 MRS. JACKSON. 

cally assured them, they need Hsten to no over- 
tures, which included an apology. His incidental 
expression that his words were not meant for a 
" menace " was graciously twisted by the French 
into a sufficient apology. The money was paid, 
four instalments in one. 

Three years before, when the first payment was 
expected, commissioners had been appointed to 
divide it among the claimants, but when it was 
really paid in quadruple quantity. Congress dropped 
it into the treasury as if it were government money. 
Now and then the heirs of the claimants lift up their 
voices, but, as Sumner said, the French claims are 
likely to become immortal. 

The last of the Indian wars came in Jackson's 
administration ; one was called the Black Hawk 
War, in which the famous chief was captured, 
and held as a hostage. He was taken through the 
principal cities of the United States, imprisoned at 
Fortress Monroe, and at the end of a year allowed 
to rejoin his tribe; the other was with the Seminoles, 
headed by the half-breed Osceola, who was defeated 
and his power broken, at Okeechobee. He after- 
wards visited the camp of General Jessup under a 
flag of truce, was seized, and sent to P'ort Moultrie, 
where he died the following year. 

One of Jackson's pet hobbies was the payment of 
the public debt. Year by year he reduced it, even 



MRS. JACKSON. 1 63 

curtailing public improvements for the purpose. 
Money poured into the treasury from the sale of the 
public lands, and when the last dollar of the debt 
was paid, there was still a surplus, which was divided 
among the States. 

Mrs. Jackson had a very beautiful niece, called 
the Flower of Tennessee, who married her cousin 
Andrew Jackson Donelson. Jackson took the pair 
to the White House, one as private secretary, the 
other as hostess. Her grace, polish, tact, and wit, 
restored some of the splendor of Queen Dolly's day. 

There had been a political outcry over the palatial 
style of the Executive Mansion under John Quincy 
Adams, but a large sum had been appropriated for 
its refurnishing at the incoming of his successor. 
The East Room was more elegantly fitted than ever. 
The four marble mantelpieces, surmounted by mir- 
rors, seen there to-day, were put in at that time. 

General Jackson kept up the same profuse hospi- 
tality to which he had been accustomed at the 
Hermitage, and, like Jefferson, had to draw largely, 
upon his private means to meet his expenses. 
Horse-racing and cock-fighting had been his favorite 
amusements at home. Horses and cocks were 
brought to Washington to enter the lists. Either 
the confinement, the journey, or change injured 
them to such a degree, that they were never on 
the winning side, and the General lost large sums of 



164 MRS. JACKSON. 

money, also his devotees, whose bets were always in 
favor of his cocks and horses. 

To his great satisfaction, his son married a Phila- 
delphia lady, and brought his bride to the White 
House. There was a question upon whom the hon- 
ors of lady of the house should rest. The President 
settled it, by saying to his daughter-in-law : " My 
dear, you are mistress of my home, but Emily (Mrs. 
Donelson) is hostess in the White House." Two 
marriages were celebrated in the White House, — 
his wife's niece. Miss Euston, to Mr. Polk, of Tennes- 
see, and the daughter of his friend. Major Lewis, to 
M. Paqueot, of Martinique, afterwards P'rench minis- 
ter to the United States. 

In the second term, the health of Mrs. Donelson 
failed, and she went to Tennessee, hoping her native 
air would restore it, but she was stamped with con- 
sumption and died in a few months, leaving several 
children. 

For a short time Mrs. Jackson presided at the 
White House, but she was a commonplace woman, 
and left no stamp upon it. 

General Jackson had adopted Martin Van Buren as 
heir apparent, and, as usual, the people endorsed him. 

On the day of the inauguration the pair rode from 
the Executive Mansion to the Capitol in a phaeton, 
made from the wood of the frigate " Constitution," 
drawn by four gray horses. The phaeton was a gift 



MRS. JACKSON. 1 65 

to General Jackson, and was taken to the " Hermi- 
tage." He remained four days a guest of Van Buren, 
and then by slow and easy stages returned to his 
home. 

He found his private affairs involved, and every- 
thing out of repair; at once he sold a part of his 
estate, and, as he said, began the new year free 
from debt. As his property was invested in land 
and negroes, the commercial dfstress, which he had 
brought upon the country, passed over him lightly ; 
he even had no sympathy for the sufferers, coolly 
saying, "no one failed who ought not to have failed." 

Years later, his son entered into business rela- 
tions, which resulted in heavy loss and failure. The 
General assumed the debts, which brought him to 
the verge of ruin. He bent his pride so far as to 
ask a loan from a friend, — the loan would have been 
a gift, could he have been prevailed upon to have it 
so ; but before he made his request, he made provi- 
sion for payment. 

In defending New Orleans, he had illegally ar- 
rested a judge and bidden defiance to a writ of habeas 
corpus, for which he had been fined one thousand 
dollars, and promptly paid. When the story of his 
embarrassments was noised abroad, a bill for refund- 
ing the money wdth interest was introduced in Con- 
gress. The bill barely passed the Senate, but the 
House gave it a large majority, — even Calhoun voted 



l66 MRS. JACKSON. 

for it. The money, which had nearly tripled, was 
nothing to the old veteran in comparison with his 
satisfaction in what he called an endorsement of his 
action. No man ever more ardently wished for pos- 
thumous fame, and now he felt that even the shadow 
of blame was lifted from his career, and he could say, 
''nunc dimittisy 

A curious gift was presented him in the last year 
of his life. A commodore coming from the East had 
secured a sarcophagus, which was believed to have 
held the body of Alexander Severus, and believing 
Jackson the equal of the magnificent old Roman em- 
peror, he tendered it to him for his final resting- 
place. 

It was declined with thanks. Had he cared for an 
emperor's coffin, it seemed like disloyalty to his wife, 
to be royally entombed by her side. 

Andrew Jackson was not one to combine religion 
with politics, but he had promised his wife that when 
he was through with one, he would take up the other. 
He fulfilled his promise, and in her church enrolled 
himself as Christ's faithful soldier. Sins of commis- 
sion never troubled him, but the omission of hanging 
Calhoun he thou2:ht the mistake of his life, and he 
would often express his belief that had he done it 
posterity would pronounce it the best act of his life. 

He kept the pistol with which he shot Dickinson 
upon the mantelpiece in his own room, as if it were 



I 



MRS. JACKSON. 1 6/ 

some glorious trophy, and if one looked at it would 
coolly explain the service it had done. 

His last illness was very long and very distressing, 
but the irascible old man bore it with patience that 
was called sublime. 

He died in 1845, aged seventy-eight 

Andrew Jackson, the son, inherited the entire es- 
tate by the will of his father, but he went on with his 
ruinous speculations and died insolvent, leaving his 
wife penniless. 

The " Hermitage " was bought by the State of 
Tennessee, in 1856, and Mrs. Jackson was gener- 
ously offered the use of it during her life. 

August 24th, 1887, the following notice appeared 
in the Nashville papers , — 

" Mrs. Sarah Jackson, wife of Andrew Jackson, Jr., 
and mistress of the White House during President 
Jackson's second term, died at the * Hermitage,' yes- 
terday, aged 81 years." 



MRS. VAN BUREN. 

In the little village of Kinderhook, New York, 
just at the close of the Revolutionary War, were 
born in the same year, two children, both of Dutch 
parentage. They played together, went to the same 
school, shared the same pursuits. The boy from his 
earliest years loved his delicate little companion, 
and as he grew to man's estate the love strength- 
ened. 

He was no child of fortune, but one obliged to 
make his own way, — the son of a farmer and tavern- 
keeper in Kinderhook. The village derived its name 
from the Dutch sailors who first sailed up the Hud- 
son. They were amused by the antics of some 
Indian children, playing about a little headland. On 
their return, they pointed towards the place, saying : 
''There is the kinder's hook." Kinder in Dutch 
means children, and hook, point. Some of the 
sailors came back with their families and settled 
there, and the place never lost the name. 

At fourteen, the innkeeper's boy was apprenticed to 
the village lawyer for seven years. When six were 
ended, he was allowed to go to New York, and in 

168 



MRS. VAN BUREN. 169 

the office of Van Ness, — famed in after years as the 
second of Burr, in his duel with Hamilton, — he 
rounded out his seventh year, went back to his 
village home, and opened an office. 

Markedly handsome, cordial in his manner, with 
shining abilities, and a temper that nothing could 
ruffle, he won his way to competency. 

When twenty-five, he asked the girl whom he had 
been wooing all his life to become his wdfe, and Miss 
Hannah Hoes became Mrs. Martin Van Buren. 

After ten prosperous, happy years, when four fine 
boys filled the nursery, the wife drooped and fell a 
victim to consumption. 

Years after, when Van Buren had become famous, 
and the world sought to know something of his early 
life, and that of his dead wife, little could be learned 
of her, save that she was shy and retiring, scarcely 
known out of her own home, except among the poor, 
in whose hearts she lived, long after she was forgot- 
ten by her own social circle. 

Van Buren filled the offices of State Senator, 
Attorney-General, and United States Senator, — the 
latter he resigned upon being chosen Governor of 
New York. He had become a politician, so skilful 
and sagacious that he was called the " Little Magi- 
cian." It was he wdio j^ulled the wires which placed 
Jackson at the head of the nation. Jackson rewarded 
his labors by appointing him Secretary of State. 



& 



I/O MRS. VAN BUREN. 

At the outset of the administration there was one 
of the strangest difficulties which ever disturbed the 
2:overnment of a nation, and led to the most astonish- 
ing results, — broke up the cabinet, politically ruined 
Calhoun, brought F. P. Blair to prominence, and 

made Van Buren President, indeed, is said to have 

« 

changed American history. 

General Jackson had appointed Major Eaton, a 
neighbor and warm friend of his, to a place in his 
cabinet. Eaton had married the widow of Purser 
Timberlake, who committed suicide while on service 
in the Mediterranean. 

The woman was the daughter of an Irishman, Wil- 
liam O'Neil, the keeper of an old-fashioned tavern in 
Washington, where the members of Congress board- 
ed. Witty, pretty, and saucy, the girl, calledyPeg 
O' Neil",) waited and tended upon her father's guests. 
It is hardly strange that, amid such surroundings, 
such a girl should become somewhat loose and too 
vivacious in her manners — her matchless beauty 
and wonderful grace turned the heads of half the 
men in Washington. The fastidious, aristocratic 
Pinckney, dedicated a poem to her, which has often 
since been quoted, when one would offer incense to 
a fair woman, — beginning, — 

" I fill this cup to one made up 
Of loveliness alone, 
A woman of her gentle sex 
The seeming paragon ; 



MRS. VAN BUREN. I/I 

" To whom the better elements 
And kindly stars have given 
A form so fair that, like the air, 
'Tis less of earth than heaven." 

In her gay, innocent girlhood, Mrs. Madison once 
crowned her at a public ball as " the prettiest girl in 
Washington." 

In both her marriages there had been some irreg- 
ularities, or rather floating stories to that effect, 
which had sullied her good name. 

As soon as she knew she was a widow, she mar- 
ried Major Eaton ; it was a gay wedding, attended 
by the President, Vice-President Calhoun, half the 
members of Congress, with a sprinkling of the dis- 
tinguished of the army and navy, though but a small 
number were accompanied by their wives. 

The wedding bells had rung, and Mrs. Eaton was 
one of the ladies of the cabinet, creine de la creine of 
society. The ladies were in dismay ; perhaps the 
charms of the bride and the open admiration of their 
husbands influenced them more than they would 
have admitted ; they met and talked the situation 
over, the decision was that she should never be 
recognized as one of their sacred circle, and the 
wives of the foreis-n ministers were bound to be 
equally immaculate in their social status. 

General Jackson's grief for his own wife, killed by 
scandal, was in its first fresh bitterness. His strong 
feelings were enlisted, and he placed himself on the 



1/2 MRS, VAN BUREN. 

side of this ostracised woman. He employed men to 
trace the foul stories to their source, even sent one to 
New York, wrote with his own hand letters enough 
to make a volume, and disproved every tale and rumor 
to his own satisfaction. Never had woman a more 
zealous advocate than this old soldier, never con- 
quered until he sought to bend woman to his will. 
He found circumventing Indians and mowing down 
the British had been an easier task. 

When Jackson's own clergyman cast a stone ai 
his favorite, he taught him Bible doctrine in very 
plain words, left the church, and never entered it 
again. He called a cabinet meeting, not to discuss 
national affairs, but to demand of the members that 
their wives should call on this woman. One said : 
*' You seem to labor under a misapprehension, Mr. 
President, as to who is general in my family." 

He bade his niece call on Mrs. Eaton. She would 
receive her as any other guest who came to the 
White House, but she was firm in her refusal of not 
visiting her in her own home. He intimated that if 
that were her decision, she had better go home to 
Tennessee, and to Tennessee she went, followed by 
her husband. The old man's heart yearned for 
those he called the children of his dead wife, and 
in six months they were recalled. 

For two years this unseemly, undignified quarrel 
raged. QfBce-seekers, whose name was legion, 



MRS. VAN BUREN. 1 73 

were advised that the surest way of winning success 
was to be on the visiting list of Mrs. Eaton ; the 
men came unaccompanied by their wives, and of 
course made no difficulty. 

Mr. Van Buren, having neither wife nor daughter, 
was profuse in his attentions, and treated her with 
every mark of respect. The English and Russian 
ministers were bachelors and quite willing to assist 
the Secretary of State in floating " Bellona," as Mrs. 
Eaton was called by the press. 

After Mr. Van Buren had given a dinner and 
party in her honor, the British minister gave a ball 
and supper. If she were led upon the floor, the 
dancers, without marked rudeness, seemed to form 
a dissolving view. The host took her in to supper, 
and, as if she were the most distinguished guest, 
placed her at the head of his table. The ladies 
were more blind than those born blind — the kind 
that wouldn't see. Their power of ignoring the 
woman was a marvel to the men. 

The minister of England had been outwitted. A 
Baron of Russia stepped to the front, with plans so 
well laid that it was thought they could not go awry. 

** The best laid schemes o' mice an' men, 
Gang aft agley." 

How little they knew of the mood of woman when 
she won't ! 

The night of the ball came, the unwedded gen- 



174 MRS. VAN BUREN. 

tlemen paid court to Mrs. Eaton through the dan- 
cing, not leading her upon the floor. The supper was 
to be the grand piece of diplomacy. Only ladies sat. 
The wife of the ambassador of Holland was high 
bred, markedly courteous and affable. At the re- 
quest of the Baron, Major Eaton offered her his 
arm. She instinctively drew back, but the pained 
look on his face softened her to an acceptance. He 
led her to a seat beside his wife. The woman was 
no dupe, though courtesy might veil her acuteness. 
She turned, took her husband's arm, and left the 
room. The Dutch shared not the festive board of 
the Russian that night. 

Mrs. Eaton related her evening's experience to 
Jackson and he was like a roaring lion. The influ- 
ence of his wife was more potent than when she 
was living, and he repressed the oaths in which he 
had once been so voluble, even " by the Eternal " 
slipped out only in unguarded moments, but he 
threatened to send the pair to Holland, as he had 
sent his children to Tennessee. 

He would give a grand dinner himself, and wives 
of ministers at home and ministers from abroad — 
wives of all the dignitaries of Washington should 
see what lady the head of the nation, the idol of the 
American people, delighted to honor. 

The seat at his right hand was reserved, and 
thither the English minister led Mrs. Eaton. Gen- 



MRS. VAN BUREN. 1/5 

eral Jackson threw into his manner all the deference 
he had been wont to show his wife, thereby thinking 
to teach his guests what he expected from them. 
Dinner over, they retired to the coffee-room, where 
the repartee and gay laugh went round — no lack of 
gayety and social abandon. 

However, the eyesight of the ladies had not im- 
proved. Had Mrs. Jackson been so treated, she 
would have kept, broken-hearted, within the recesses 
of her own home. This was not the way of Mrs. 
Eaton, nee O'Neil. To Major Eaton, life was a 
burden. An anonymous letter told him that he 
was to be roasted, broiled, and baked, and he felt 
that it was literally being done. 

Woman's will had proved as strong as Jackson's, 
and he too resolved upon a dissolving view. The 
cabinet were all dismissed. Clay called it a cleans- 
ing of the Augean stable. Such a thing had never 
happened before, and in the political world it seemed 
as if the heavens had fallen. 

Those who had bowed before the shrine of her 
whom Webster called the " Aaron's serpent of the 
President's desires," were to be provided with places 
of honor. In the recess of Congress, Matty, as 
Jackson fondly called his favorite, was appointed 
minister to the Court of St. James. Like the King 
of France, he went up the hill and soon came down 
a^ain. 



1/6 MRS. VAN BUREN. 

Calhoun, Webster, and Clay were men of might, 
and at the opening of Congress united their 
strength against the confirmation. On the even- 
ing of the day that the London papers proclaimed 
Van Buren's rejection in flaming capitals, Talleyrand 
gave a crowded party; he was a guest, as urbane 
and dignified as if ''rejected" by the Senate had 
read '* confirmed." 

Calhoun, who hated him, said to a friend, who 
doubted the wisdom of the recall, " It will kill him, 
sir, kill him dead. He will never kick, sir, never 
kick." This from the astute Calhoun! It was the 
petard which tossed him high on the ladder of 
political fame, and four years later into the seat, 
which each of the Titan trio was ambitious to fill. 

Vice-President, President, and Peg O'Neil had 
been the ace of trumps in the game which had been 
played. 

Major Eaton was sent first to Florida, and, later, 
minister to Spain, where he remained four years, — 
happy years for Mrs. Eaton, who led there a brilliant, 
irreproachable life. Soon after their return. Major 
Eaton died, leaving her all his fortune, which she lost 
by foolishly marrying, at the age of sixty, an Italian 
music teacher of twenty-one, who eloped with one 
of her daughters. She transmitted her marvellous 
beauty, grace, and fascinations ; one daughter mar- 
ried Dr. Randolph, of Virginia ; another, the Duke de 



MRS. VAN BUREN. 1/7 

Sampayo in Paris; and a granddaughter, the Baron 
de Rothschild, of Austria. This remarkable woman 
died in 1879, ^^ ^^e age of eighty-three, saying at the 
last, *' I am not afraid, but this is such a beautiful 
world." 

After Van Buren's inauguration. General Jackson 
was the first to shake hands and offer him cordial 
congratulations. As the pair rode away, the cheers 
were for "Old Hickory," who had risen from a sick 
bed, against the advice of his physician, that he 
might grace the triumph of his favorite ; a smile 
of satisfaction lit up his hard, worn features, as 
bareheaded, leaning upon his cane, holding in his 
hand his white fur hat, crape bound, he bowed 
right and left, in acknowledgment of the honors 
paid him. The old hero went out of office sur- 
rounded with a halo of glory. 

The journey to Washington was easier, and made 
in less time than ever before ; crowds from every 
state had poured into the city, rather to see the set- 
ting than the rising sun. Food of the best, rich 
wines, and punch were abundantly provided, but not 
a bed upon which to lay one's head, — that is, not to 
exasfgierate, there were more heads than beds. 

A cry for them went up, as strong as King Rich- 
ard's when he needed a horse. The floor of the 
marketplace was covered with men, having little more 
than a wisp of straw for a pillow. Boston guests 



1/8 MRS. VAN BUREN. 

paid fabulous prices for barbers' chairs, and even 
took them, turn about. 

The reception was nearly as disorderly as the one 
eight years before, when " Old Hickory " was roped 
in, by the linking of his friends into one solid mass, 
for the protection of his person. Fortunately, the 
diplomatic corps came later and by themselves, in 
their court dresses. Van Buren, born with an intui- 
tive sense of knowing when to smile and when to re- 
frain from smiling, when to remain silent, and if 
words were to be spoken the proper ones to use, was 
said to have made the only lapsus lingucB of his life ; 
could he have chosen, he would have sooner made it 
in any other presence. In answering the congratu- 
latory speech presented by their dean, he addressed 
them as the "democratic corps;" to make matters 
worse, his attention was called to it, and he had to 
say what he did mean. 

The first year of Van Buren's administration was 
gloomy, both socially and politically. The Executive 
Mansion was without a mistress. Jackson's igno- 
rance and lack of statesmanship had brought upon 
the country a financial panic, which convulsed the 
nation. Business men and states were bankrupt, — 
even the United States government could not pay 
its debts, — a state of affairs which would have sorely 
tried the stoutest heart and strongest mind, but the 
new President met them with an undaunted front, 



MRS. VAN BUREN. 1 79 

which surprised his enemies, who had never thought 
the smooth, courteous gentleman to be a man of 
courage. 

The removal of the deposits, without any organ- 
ized plan of what should come after had brought all 
these evils upon the land, and such statesmen as 
Webster and Clay could find no panacea but restor- 
ing them. Van Buren was firm in his purpose of 
treading in the footsteps of his predecessor, — there 
was to be no step backward. 

The distribution of the surplus revenue, the con- 
tests over the Sub-Treasury Bill and other relief 
measures, urged by the President, kept the country 
in a ferment, and made a wordy war on the floor of 
Congress. 

Three instalments of the surplus had been paid 
the states ; when the fourth and last became due, 
the President proposed to withhold it. Further, he 
declined to go, on the ground that it was not the 
office of government to relieve the people from finan- 
cial embarrassments, or to negotiate foreign and do- 
mestic exchanges. 

The financial misery and gloom of the people, 
which was the legacy of Jackson, warred against his 
popularity from the first, and already there was an 
outlook for, and the discussion of a successor. 

Few of the presidents have lived through their 
term of office without some sort of an imbroglio with 



l8o MRS. VAN BUREN. 

England, and Van Buren's was no exception to the 
rule, — Lilliputian, to be sure, but it made an excite- 
ment at the time. 

The Canadians had revolted and raised the stand- 
ard of rebellion against England. The American 
people knew what mercy, power, and justice meant 
when wielded by British statesmen, and the sympathy 
of those on the frontiers was stirred to assist in what 
was called the " Patriot War." They were ready to 
enlist as volunteers, and to contribute of their sub- 
stance. The President was prompt, — said, hands 
off, and sent General Scott to enforce obedience ; 
warned them there would be no protection of the 
United States government to any who aided the 
Canadians. A motley company of adventurers as- 
sembled at Navy Island in Niagara River, hired a 
steamer, called the " Caroline," to convey their gifts 
of arms and provisions. Colonel, afterward Sir Al- 
lan McNabb won his spurs in this single and almost 
bloodless campaign. He sent a boat expedition to 
seize the " Caroline " at the old Schlosser dock. A 
fight took place, and in the melee one American was 
killed, but they were as stanch as the renowned 
Lawrence in not giving up the ship. 

The British conceived the bright idea of firing what 
they could not capture. When it was one sheet of 
flame and had burnt away its fastenings, it floated 
away over Niagara Falls. 



MRS. VAN BUREN. l8l 

There were many tiffs in the northeast between 
the people of Maine and those of New Brunswick 
over their boundaries. Both sides threatened to take 
up arms which would have brought on war ; they 
confined themselves to threats during Van Buren's 
reign, and it was an open question for his successor. 

The inauguration of Van Buren was in the year 
that the widowed Mrs. Madison returned to Wash- 
ington. Years and grief had not destroyed her 
social charm ; she was still a leader of society, the 
fascinating "Queen Dolly." 

She had a young cousin, daughter of Hon. Richard 
S. Singleton, belonging to the best of the blue blood 
of South Carolina, who came to pass the season at 
the capital. At Mrs. Madison's request. Van Buren 
appointed a day to receive her and her guest. The 
girl's intellect, rare beauty (handed down by In man), 
and varied accomplishments, at once made her a fa- 
vorite of the courtly President. He had taken pos- 
session of the White House accompanied only by his 
four sons, but it was maintained with as much ele- 
gance and taste, as ever under any woman's sway. 
He presided over the dinners and receptions with per- 
fect tact and politeness. His glass, china, and silver- 
ware surpassed anything that had ever been seen in 
the country, and his gold-lined spoons gave him as 
much obloquy among the opposition, as if he had 
committed treason. 



1 82 MRS. VAN BUREN. 

■ Mr. Van Buren's eldest son, Abraham, a graduate 
of West Point (had served as aide-de-camp to Gen- 
eral Worth) was his private secretary and constant 
companion. Great was his satisfaction on being 
asked by this young gentleman to receive Mrs. 
Madison's charming relative as a daughter. 

The next season, Miss Angelica Singleton was a 
bride and the hostess of the Executive Mansion. 
Her youth and beauty, her tact, her gracibusness, the 
patience and pleasant courtesy, which never flagged 
through the long hours, made her universally ad- 
mired. Traditions of her remind one of the fair 
lady who now lends such a charm to the White 
House, and sheds a lustre on the present adminis- 
tration. 

In the spring, a bridal trip was taken to Europe. 

Those Guelph men, who had for so many years 
disgraced the nation had passed away, and the 
young Victoria (recently crowned), a maiden, under 
the wing of her mother, was holding a gay court, 
thronged by distinguished foreigners, among whom 
was the Czar of Russia and the Prince of Orange. 

Our Republican lady was a niece of the American 
Minister, which, added to her position in the Presi- 
dent's family, gave her advantages and an entrance 
into the court circle which no other American lady 
had ever enjoyed. 

Her trip extended to Paris, where Louis Philippe 



MRS. VAN BUREN. I83 

and his queen received her into the home circle at 
St. Cloud. 

At the opening of Congress, she was again at her 
post, and until the close of the administration made 
the Executive Mansion the centre of social elegance 
and gayety. 

Mr. Van Buren was a candidate for a second term, 
and thought his election certain. For the first time, 
his political insight was at fault. 

The political poets sang, — 

"Van, Van, Van, you are a used-up man." 

And after all these years of successful, vaulting 
ambition, it was even so. 

It was customary for the city authorities to pass a 
vote of thanks to the retiring President for the in- 
terest he had taken in the prosperity of the national 
metropolis. The aldermen and common council fol- 
lowed the usual custom, but Mr. Van Buren, always 
courteous in manner to his opponents, had neverthe- 
less excluded these from the hospitalities of the 
Executive Mansion, and thus incurred the indignation 
of- the mayor, who vetoed the complimentary resolu- 
tions and in his message gave his reasons for this 
marked slight, which greatly annoyed the President. 

Gracefully had he risen to power, but he took very 
good care to have the White House ready for his 
successor, and did not await his arrival or grace his 
triumph. 



184 MRS. VAN BUREN. 

He retired to Lindenwald, his estate in the village 
where he was born, and had wooed and won his wife. 

Twice, was he again the candidate for the office of 
chief magistrate, but the people repudiated the man 
under whose administration they had suffered such 
bitter evils. 

At the breaking out of the Civil War, Mr. Van 
Buren had turned fourscore, but his heart beat as 
strong for his country and the Union as in the days 
when General Jackson stamped upon secession and 
threatened to seize every senator from South Caro- 
lina upon the charge of treason. Before the strife 
was ended, he had finished the battle of life, and 
rested by the side of the wife who had lain for 
nearly half a century among the " dusty dead " in 
the airy cemetery of Kinderhook, but had never lost 
her place in the heart of her husband. 



MRS. HARRISON. 

Miss Anna Symmes, the daughter of a colonel 
in the Continental army, was born near Morristown, 
New Jersey, at the beginning of the war of the 
Revolution. Her birth was soon followed by the 
death of her mother. 

When the state became the battle-ground of the 
two armies. Colonel Symmes was anxious for the 
safety of his little motherless daughter, and desired 
to place her with her mother's mother on Long Is- 
land. Long Island was held by the British, — a 
disloyal citizen could not pass their lines, and were 
an American officer caught there, the penalty would 
be death. He conceived the bold design of passing 
in the disguise of a British uniform. It was a 
perilous undertaking, but by pluck and boldness he 
made it a success. 

The little girl, then four years old, never forgot 
the incidents of that journey. She was a sedate, 
quiet child, and the training of her grandmother, a 
convert and follower of Whitfield, made her still 
more so. 

In after years, when she presided as governor's 
lady, when a home in the White House loomed 

185 



1 86 MRS. HARRISON. 

before her, she would often say : *' From my earliest 
childhood, the frivolous amusements of youth had 
no charm for me. If ever constrained to attend 
places of fashionable amusement, it was to gratify 
others, not myself." 

By her grandmother she was taught industry, 
order, truthfulness, prudence and economy, but with- 
out teaching, she was imbued with a love of God 
and the desire to be a Christian, from the example of 
that grandmother's daily life. 

Her years had doubled, and American Independ- 
ence was recognized by England, before she again 
met her father, who had fought all through the war, 
and bore an honored part. Arranging for his child 
to have the best instruction New York City afforded, 
he left her in the care of her grandparents until she 
grew to womanhood. 

In 1793, Colonel Symmes led a company of 
pioneers from New Jersey to the banks of the Ohio, 
to build a town and live a frontier life. A year later 
he came to New York, married the daughter of 
Governor Livingston, and in the early autumn took 
his bride and daughter, just turned eighteen, to 
make a home in the new settlement. It was a long 
and dangerous journey, and the New Year had come 
before it was brought to a close. 

Miss Anna had a married sister in Kentucky, 
upon whom she made frequent visits. Among her 



MRS. HARRISON. I87 

sister's guests was a young captain in the United 
States army, who was at once attracted by the 
pretty face and modest, gentle manners of the young- 
girl It is evident that the attraction was mutual, 
for in November of this same year the pair were 
married in her father's house. 

The young captain was the son of Benjamin 
Harrison, a Virginia grandee, an intimate friend of 
Washington, who travelled with him to Philadelphia 
after the news of Concord and Lexington, a signer 
of the Declaration of Independence, a member of 
the first Continental Congress, and Governor of the 
State. He was a man of immense size, great 
strength, and full of fun. 

At the time of the signing of the Declaration of 
Independence, there was, as a rule, great solemnity. 
Each man felt as he signed the document that his 
name was a gage thrown down to the King of 
England, which he must make good, or by a halter 
die the death of a traitor. Franklin could joke, 
and allay the excitement and chagrin of Jefferson, 
as the paper he had drawn up was sifted, praised, 
condemned, cut down, and finally signed. 

When Charles Carroll signed, one said : *' You are 
safe, Carroll, there are so many of that name." But 
he promptly turned back and added "of Carrollton," 
which would stamp him, if the cause were lost, and 
he was a man of immense fortune. 



1 88 MRS. HARRISON. 

Harrison often brought a smile to the solemn- 
faced members. When Elbridge Gerry, the slightest 
among them, almost overcome by the magnitude of 
the deed he was about to do, took pen in hand, he 
said : " Gerry, when the hanging comes, I shall have 
the advantage, you'll kick in the air half an hour 
after it is all over with me." 

Most of the members signed on the Fourth, and 
the Declaration was proclaimed at the State House 
in Philadelphia, amid loud acclamations, and notes 
of Liberty pealed from the venerable bell on In- 
dependence Hall. 

At the setting of the sun, the equestrian statue 
of George the Third was laid prostrate on the 
ground, and the lead of which it was made run into 
bullets to shoot down His Majesty's troops. The 
work which England called treason was con- 
summated. 

Harrison and Hancock were both candidates for 
Speaker. The Virginian gracefully gave way to the 
Bay State patriot, and, as Hancock modestly held 
back, took him in his arms, carried him across the 
hall and placed him in the chair, amid the laughter 
of the members, then turning said: ** Gentlemen, 
we will show Mother Britain how little we care for 
her by making a Massachusetts man our President, 
whom she has excluded from pardon by a public 
proclamation." 



MRS. HARRISON. 1 89 

The son of this patriot, William Henry Harrison, 
was brought up amid wealth and social culture, and 
had every advantage of education that the colonies 
afforded. His father died while he was yet a lad, 
and Robert Morris, the celebrated financier, was his 
guardian, who placed him with the famous Dr. Rush 
of Philadelphia, for the study of medicine. 

When he was nineteen, the frightful ravages upon 
our northwestern frontier by the Indians fired the 
heart of the boy with military ardor. Contrary to 
the advice of instructor and guardian, he asked a 
commission of Washington, then President of the 
United States, who gave him his hearty approval 
and the rank of an ensign. 

His first special duty was to take some pack- 
horses through forty miles of wilderness. An old 
frontier man said : " I would as soon have thought 
of putting my wife into the service as this boy ; but 
I have been out with him and find those smooth 
cheeks are on a wise head, and that slight frame is 
almost as tough as my own weatherbeaten carcass." 
He rose to the rank of lieutenant and served under 
Wayne, called " Mad Anthony," for his reckless 
daring. Harrison, for his bravery and prowess, was 
made captain, and placed in command of Fort Wash- 
ington. It was at this time, at the age of twenty- 
two, that he married Miss Anna Symmes. Two 
years later he resigned his command, and was ap- 



igO MRS. HARRISON. 

pointed lieutenant-governor of the Northwest Terri- 
tory. When the territory was entitled to a delegate 
to Congress, he was chosen. His wife accompanied 
him to Washington, and it was what she called her 
''bridal trip." She spent most of her time in visit- 
ing her husband's relatives in Virginia. 

When but twenty-seven, Harrison was appointed 
by John Adams Governor of the Northwest Terri- 
tory ; re-appointed twice by Jefferson, and once by 
Madison, ruling for twelve years a larger domain 
than almost any sovereign in the world. He was 
what the poet would have called " the noblest work 
of God," an honest man. Never would he hold an 
acre of land by a title coming from himself. 

A foreigner once accused him of defrauding the 
Indians. He demanded an investigation in a court 
of justice, was acquitted, and awarded four thousand 
dollars, damages. One third he gave to the orphans 
of soldiers, and the remainder he returned to his 
accuser. 

A landed proprietor offered him half the land 
which now comprises St. Louis, if he would assist 
in building up the place. He refused, lest it might 
be said that he used his official station to promote 
his private interests. 

At a land sale the title was not valid on account 
of some defective proceedings of the court, and the 
property, soon worth millions, reverted to his wife. 



MRS. HARRISON. I9I 

With him honesty and justice were higher than law, 
and he would have none of it. 

The Northwest was full of Indians, whom our 
sweet mother, England, burning with hatred, was 
inciting by gifts of arms to raise the tomahawk 
against the children whom she had driven from her 
control. Among the warriors were two most extra- 
ordinary men of the class which has thrown such a 
halo of romance around the aborisfines of North 

o 

America. 

Tecumseh and Elks-tawa were twins ; the first 
was truthful, generous, hospitable, handsome in 
features, of a symmetrical, powerful frame, digni- 
fied and defiant, with the air of a king, and withal 
the bravest of his tribe ; the other, a prophet and 
orator, with an eloquence so vivid, that he could 
sway the hearts of all the tribes on the war-path. 

When Tecumseh left camp to rouse the Southern 
Indians to unite with the Northern, Harrison sur- 
prised the prophet, and by an overwhelming victory, 
won the title of Tippecanoe, and secured safety to 
the settlers on the banks of the Ohio. 

He removed his own family to Cincinnati, but was 
directly after appointed by Madison, commander-in- 
chief of the Northwestern army, with power almost 
absolute. 

Mrs. Harrison was to be left alone for an uncer- 
tain period with a family of ten young children. 



192 MRS. HARRISON. 

Not only was there no repining, nor shrinking from 
responsibility, but a gathering in of the children of 
friends and neighbors, several of whom were regular 
inmates of her large family, that they might have 
the benefit of the private tutor whom she always 
employed. 

Hull had made his inglorious surrender at Detroit 
when Harrison received his appointment ; troops 
were to be raised and disciplined. Like Jackson, 
he was troubled with short enlistments and men 
clamoring to go home, but we hear of no court- 
martial or military executions. He retook Detroit, 
and somewhat redeemed the honor of the American 
arms at the North. 

Not harmonizing with the Secretary of War, he 
resigned, bought the farm at North Bend, and was 
at once chosen Representative to Congress. Here 
he was accused of corruption ; he demanded a thor- 
ough investigation, and was not only acquitted, but 
received the thanks of Congress and a gold medal. 

John Ouincy Adams, at the close of his adminis- 
tration, appointed him minister to the Republic of 
Columbia. He had no sooner arrived there than he 
was recalled by Jackson, who could never forget, that 
when a vote of censure against himself was before 
Congress, Harrison voted in its favor, though he 
made a stirring speech in which he awarded full 
glory and honor to the hero of New Orleans. On 



MRS. HARRISON. I93 

his return, he settled at his farm at North Bend, 
accepting the office of clerk of the court of Hamilton 
County, to eke out an income sufficient for the needs 
of his numerous family. 

In 1836, he was candidate for the presidency in 
opposition to Mr. Van Buren. It was a great relief 
to Mrs. Harrison that he was not elected. At no 
time caring to stand in the world's high places, she 
cared less now, as she was weighted with sorrow. 
During the life at North Bend she lost an infant, 
seven children, grown and settled in life, and ten 
grandchildren. As blow after blow fell, she would 
repeat her favorite text, " Be still, and know that I 
am God." 

In these days, we should say that North Bend was 
an unhealthy locality, or that the drainage was bad, and 
refrain from thinking that God had laid a heavy hand 
upon them. A second time General Harrison was 
the candidate in opposition to Mr. Van Buren. 
Never was there a more spirited or exciting cam- 
paign. 

He, who was born, cradled, and reared among the 
aristocrats of the land was taunted with having lived 
in a ^'log-cabin" and drinking "hard cider." They 
became the shibboleth of his party, and were in every 
town and village drawn about with torchlight proces- 
sions, while people cheered and sang, " Tippecanoe 
and Tyler, too." 



194 MRS. HARRISON. 

A favorite song was one which began with the fol- 
lowing verse, — 

" Can grateful freemen slight his claims, 

Who bravely did defend 
Their lives and fortunes on the Thames, 

The Farmer of North Bend ? 

Chorus : The Farmer of North Bend, my boys. 
The Farmer of North Bend, 
We'll give a right good hearty vote 
To the Farmer of North Bend." 

The victory was won, but how barren the result ; 
so little of Tippecanoe and *' too " much of Tyler. 

General Harrison was a well-bred, educated man ; 
his conversation, letters, and speeches were always 
well spiced with classical allusions, but he had no 
claim to intellectual greatness. 

The public clamored only for honesty, fair dealing, 
and a return to the prosperity of the days when 
there had been a United States bank, — money had 
been plenty and provisions cheap. 

The dignified and seemly manner with which the 
Executive Mansion had been maintained was only a 
cause of irritation. In the campaign, a Pennsylva- 
nian upon the floor of Congress had detailed and 
dwelt upon the elegance of its furniture, as if it were 
a cause for reproach, — had compared it with a log- 
cabin, as if it were a merit to live in one when one 
could command something better; the new candidate 
was held up as another Cincinnatus, which so tickled 



MRS. HARRISON. I95 

his classical fancy that he likened his journey to the 
national capital to the return of Cicero to Rome, 
amid the cheers and plaudits of Cato and the stern 
old Romans. 

His inaugural, written in a large bold hand, 
covered many sheets of foolscap. He submitted it 
to Webster for criticism. Had the great man dif- 
fered with him upon any of the vital topics at issue, 
he might have given an attentive ear, but when he 
proposed not only to condense the document, but to 
rob it of some of its classical allusions, Harrison 
thought the statesman little knew what language 
was becoming for an old Roman to use, and the 
address was given intact. 

His entrance into the national capital was upon a 
cold February day, when the air was filled with rain 
and sleet. Had he sensibly followed the old maxim : 
" When you are among the Romans, do as the 
Romans do," he would have taken a cab and ridden 
comfortably to his hotel, but that would not comport 
with the ways of men centuries dead, in a land thou- 
sands of miles removed. 

He walked from the station, his head bared to the 
blast, front lock a la Napoleon, bowing acknowledg- 
ments for the cheers of the vi^ell-wrapped, umbrella- 
protected citizens who thronged the way. 

Chagrined at being opposed by his native state, 
and taunted with the name of Abolitionist, before 



196 MRS. HARRISON. 

the mantle of power descended upon him, he made a 
visit to Richmond, made speeches and assured the 
citizens of his devotion to their section and its priv- 
ileges. 

A piercing northeast wind blew on tbe fourth of 
March, 1841, and the sun was darkened by clouds. 
Party friends of the general had presented a carriage 
for the occasion, but now as he was to embody the 
majesty of the United States, he would ride as did 
the Roman Emperors along the Appian Way. 

Mr. Van Buren, doubly piqued by the slight of the 
civil authorities, declined to enact the part of con- 
quered hero in the pageantry. 

General Harrison, without overcoat, mounted on a 
spirited white charger, surrounded by a staff of 
mounted marshals, rode, hat in hand, bowing 
acknowledsrments to the enthusiastic crowd, who 

o 

cheered themselves hoarse. He was followed by a 
brilliant procession ; the students of the Jesuit 
College at Georgetown, appeared in their uniform, 
carrying a beautiful banner and headed by their 
faculty. Mechanics, representing their trades, came 
from all parts of the Union. Tippecanoe Clubs 
rolled their log cabins, surmounted with coons and 
freighted with hard cider. 

The Senate Chamber had never presented a more 
brilliant spectacle. The diplomatic corps were 
covered with gold and silver embroidery, with all 



MRS. HARRISON. ' I97 

their orders blazing on their breasts. The army and 
navy officers were in full uniform, the Justices of the 
Supreme Court in their black silk robes, and the scene 
was graced by the highest dignitaries of the land. 

A deafening shout went up, which proclaimed the 
arrival of General Harrison, the hero of the day. 

He stepped to the front of the platform, delivered 
his inaugural in clear, ringing tones. His hearers, 
muffled and wrapped, nearly perished from the icy 
blasts, while he stood bareheaded, without overcoat 
or gloves. 

Mr. Monroe once said, that '*a little flattery would 
carry one through a great deal of fatigue," and 
jDcrhaps it has as potent an effect in warding off the 
cold ; there was no lack of shouts and cheers as the 
President handled each favorite topic. The press 
commented on the message rather adversely, called 
it "vague and diffuse," still the party hoped for the 
best. 

Benumbed and half-frozen as he was, the president 
waived away the carriage offered him and rode upon 
his charcrer as he came. On reachins: the Executive 
Mansion he held a reception, and for three hours 
he was constantly shaking hands with the crowds, 
that thronged the house. 

The day wound up with three inaugural balls, and 
the president favored each with a visit, accompanied 
by his daughter-in-law, who for the present was to 



198 MRS. HARRISON. 

preside over his household. The delicacy of Mrs. 
Harrison's health forbade her travelling until the 
season was more advanced. 

According to all the laws of self-preservation, 
which the Chief Magistrate had defied, he ought 
to have been seized with his mortal illness then, 
instead of a month later. 

Office-seekers worried and wore him down ; he 
had differences with the great men of his party, who 
rather sought to control him ; once he turned 
sharply on Clay and said : " Mr. Clay, you forget 
that I am President;" he rarely retired before one 
o'clock in the morning and as had been his habit, rose 
early. These things began to tell upon the frame 
that had failed to succumb upon the day of the 
inauguration. Probably an overcoat did not form a 
part of his wardrobe, as he was never known to 
wear one. In one of his early walks to market, he 
was caught in a sh6wer, and refused on his return, 
to change his wet clothes. This time, the disease, 
pneumonia, that his imprudence had invited, settled 
upon him. 

The nature of his worries appeared in his delirium. 
At one time he said, " My dear madam, I did not 
direct that your husband should be turned out. I 
did not know it. I tried to prevent it." At an- 
other: "It is wrons: — I won't consent — 'tis un- 
just." Again: "These applications, — will they 



V. 



MRS. HARRISON. I99 

never cease ? " His honesty appeared in his last 
words, when he said, as if addressing his successor, 
*' Sir ! I wish you to understand the true principles 
of the government. I wish them carried out, I ask 
nothing more." 

On the fourth of April, there was death in the 
White House, where ''never before had trod his i 
skeleton foot." The hero of Tippecanoe "from the'* 
Vound at the top had stepped to the sky." The 
hosts, who had come before to witness his triumph, 
came again to behold the funeral pomp. Public and 
private buildings were draped in black, minute-guns 
were fired, flags everywhere at half-mast, and all 
places of business closed. 

The services were held in the Executive Mansion. 
The casket lay in the East Room, where one little 
month before he had stood through the long levee. 

It was covered with black velvet, trimmed with 
gold lace, and over it was thrown a velvet pall with 
a deep, golden fringe. On this lay the sword of 
justice and the sword of state, surmounted by the 
scroll of the Constitution, bound together by a 
funeral wreath of yew and cypress. Around the 
casket were grouped in a circle, the new President, 
Mr. Tyler, the ex-President, John Ouincy Adams, 
and the members of the cabinet. In the next 
circle were the diplomatic corps in their rich court 
suits, members of Congress, and the relatives of 
the dead president. 



200 MRS. HARRISON. 

An outer circle was made up of a vast assemblage 
of friends. When the clergyman began ; " I am 
the resurrection and the life," the entire company 
rose and joined in the burial service of the Episco- 
pal church. 

The funeral car was drawn by six white horses, 
each having at his head a black groom dressed in 
white, with white turban and sash. Outside of the 
grooms walked the pall-bearers, dressed in black, 
with black scarfs. 

The procession with its military escort, was two 
miles in length and eclipsed the inauguration pa- 
geant which had preceded it. The remains were 
placed in a tomb in the Congressional Burying 
Ground, and the military fired three volleys over it. 

Mrs. Harrison was busy with preparations for her 
journey, with her husband's letter before her, telling 
of the inaugural balls and the high honors heaped 
upon him, when a messenger came with the fatal 
news. 

For once the brave. Christian woman was stricken 
to the earth. Dead ! She could not believe it. 

In time, not then, she could repeat the text which 
had ever been her help, and resigned cheerfulness 
returned. 

For fourteen years she remained at the farm at 
North Bend, but as extreme old age crept on, she 
was persuaded to go to the house of her son, five 



MRS. HARRISON. 201 

miles away, where she died in her eighty-ninth year. 
Her funeral sermon was preached by Dr. Bushnell 
from her favorite text, at her own request. Her 
remains were taken to North Bend, and laid beside 
her husband's on the banks of the Ohio. 

Her grandson, Benjamin Harrison, is the present 
Republican candidate for the Presidency. 



MRS. LETITIA CHRISTIAN TYLER.— 
MRS. JULIA GARDINER TYLER. 

Miss Letitia Christian, belonging to one of the 
oldest and best families, was called the belle of East- 
ern Virginia, when she had only turned her sixteenth 
year. Modest, retiring, cultivated, and beautiful, the 
fairest among a bevy of fair sisters, she was sought 
by many suitors, among whom was John Tyler, a boy 
of seventeen, son of the o-overnor of the state. 

On his part, it was love at first sight ; and so ar- 
dent was his wooing that he soon distanced all his 
rivals. Boy and girl as they were, they plighted 
their troth. It was his pride that he had no fortune 
to offer, declaring that the thought of her being in- 
fluenced by prudential motives would have eternally 
tortured him. 

So digniied was the reserve of this belle and 
beauty, that she would never give permission to her 
lover to address her by letter, though he penned her 
many a love sonnet. 

The engagement lasted more than five years, and 
it was only three months before marriage that he 
dared break bounds and send his first love letter, re- 



MRS. LETITIA CHRISTIAN TYLER. 2O3 

markable for its lofty delicacy. It is still carefully 
preserved in the family. He often told his children 
that he " never presumed to kiss her hand at parting 
until within three weeks of the wedding day." 

On his twenty-third birthday, when Miss Letitia 
was twenty-two, he led her to the altar, and thus se- 
cured to himself the support of the influential family 
to which she belonged. As soon as the festivities 
were over, he took his bride to Green way, an estate 
belonging to his father. 

She shrank from public notice, and enjoyed noth- 
ing so much as her own home. When her husband 
became governor of the state, she is said to have 
presided with ease, dignity, and grace. Only one 
season could she be persuaded to spend amid the 
social gayeties of Washington, during the five terms 
that he served as representative and senator. But 
once could he prevail on her to go among the fash- 
ionable watering places at the North. She pre- 
ferred the quiet, slow ways of the mountain resorts 
of her native state ; indeed, her nursery left her 
little leisure for society. She was the mother of 
nine children, two of whom died in infancy. 

As years went by she grew frail and delicate. A 
new daughter, the bride of her eldest son, described 
her in her declining health, as " bearing the marks of 
her early beauty, — a skin as soft and smooth as a 
baby's, sweet, loving black eyes, features delicately 



204 MRS. LETITIA CHRISTIAN TYLER. 

moulded, perfect hands and feet, gentle and graceful 
in her movements, with a peculiar air of refinement, 
a nature entirely unselfish, all her thoughts and af- 
fection given to her husband and children." 

In her early married life, when there were times 
of pecuniary difficulties, her one thought had been to 
save her husband from care and expense, and that his 
honest independence was preserved was chiefly owing 
to her. 

In 1839, she had a stroke of paralysis, from which 
she never fully rallied. Two years later, Harrison's 
untimely death placed her husband at the head of 
the nation. She went to the White House with a 
heavy heart. She had been brought near and faced 
the unseen world, and realized that she was still 
within its shadow. Fashion, display, and the per- 
sonal triumph of holding the highest place, could 
have for her no charm. She received few visitors 
and paid no visits. The social duties of her position 
she delegated to her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Robert 
Tyler, until her own daughter, Letitia, Mrs. Semple, 
was able to assume the place. 

Mrs. Robert Tyler was a very elegant and accom- 
plished woman, daughter of Thomas Apthorpe Cooper, 
the tragedian. Before her marriage, she assisted 
him in Virginius, taking the part of Virginia, more 
f^om filial love than from any desire for the stage. 
In his old age, she had the satisfaction of procuring 



a 



MRS. LETITIA CHRISTIAN TYLER. 205 

for him a position in the New York Custom House, 
and later, a better one at the Arsenal in Philadelphia. 

The Tylers were the first to introduce music in the / 
presidential grounds. 

A gay marriage was celebrated in the Executive 
Mansion, fast becoming historic, between Miss Eliza- 
beth, third daughter of the family, and Mr. William 
Waller. It was intended, on the mother's account, 
that it should be very private ; but in their high sta- 
tion it could not well be managed. Mrs. Madison, 
the families of the members of the cabinet, and those 
of the foreign ministers, with a host of relatives and 
friends, made up a brilliant assemblage. It was the 
first time that Mrs. Tyler ever appeared in general 
society at the White House. It may have been lov^- 
ing partiality that gave the verdict, but the family 
decided that she was more attractive in looks and 
bearing than any woman present. 

Once again she was present, at the fancy ball given \ 
by her three-year-old, fairy-dressed granddaughter, \ 
when every state in the Union had its baby repre- / 
sentative. Mrs. Madison, the distinguished guest 
wherever she went, sat opposite the little hostess, — 
the only adult guest seated. No servants were pres- 
ent, but lady guests served, and distributed the 
Christmas gifts. 

Early in the autumn of the second year of Tyler's 
reign, Mrs. Tyler was again stricken with paralysis. 



206 MRS. LETITIA CHRISTIAN TYLER. 

and in a few hours ** slept the sleep that knows no 
waking." The funeral service, the second in the 
White House, was according to the rites of the Epis- 
copal church, of which she was a member; a touch- 
ing scene was enacted outside the mansion, by the 
gathering of a crowd of her beneficiaries, sobbing, 
wringing their hands, and every now and then crying 
out, " Oh, the poor have lost a friend." After the 
service, her husband bore her home to Virginia. 
The Executive Mansion, never gay under the Tylers, 
vi'as now shrouded in mourning. 

The administration was very unpopular, so much 
so that Congress would make no appropriation for 
furnishing the house, nor for any of the incidental 
expenses which its occupancy entailed. A son of 
the President was his private secretary, but Con- 
gress would grant no salary. 

By a political compromise, Tyler's name had been 
put on the Whig ticket with Harrison's, to secure 
Southern votes. Unexpectedly and unfortunately 
for himself and the nation, he became Chief Magis- 
trate. At the time of the inauguration, he had 
taken umbrage at the course of affairs and had 
retired to his home in Virginia, where he was 
notified of the event which exalted him. 

The cabinet, by the advice of John Quincy Adams, 
decided that he should be officially styled, ''Vice- 
President of the United States, acting President." 



MRS. LETITIA CHRISTIAN TYLER. 20^ 

Mr. Tyler came, — he was to be no regent, boldly 
signed hiaiself '' President of the United States," 
claimed all the honors of his position, and by com- 
mon consent the title was admitted as legitimate 
At his hotel, he at once took the same oath that 
other Presidents had taken. In June he sent to the 
extra session of Congress, which General Harrison 
had convened, a message, so uncertain in its tone, 
that it might be twisted to mean anything which 
future events might make it expedient for him to 
carry out. 

The whole elective campaign had turned on the 
United States Bank, and here was where he was the 
least lucid, was said to have displayed the " caution 
and ambiguity of a Talleyrand." The Whigs were 
alarmed. The imperious leader, Henry Clay, antici- 
pating trouble, exclaimed, "Tyler dares not resist : 
I will drive him before me." 

The first business of the session was the repeal of 
the Sub-Treasury Act, which so elated the party, 
that they celebrated it in a procession and a mock 
funeral for the obnoxious measure, made festive by 
fireworks and martial music. 

The bill for the Distribution of the Proceeds of 
the Public Lands among the States, and the Bank- 
rupt Law passed as harmoniously, and received the 
President's signature. 

Then came the grand crisis. The House and the 



208 MRS. LETITIA CHRISTIAN TYLER, 

Senate passed the bill upon which the Whigs 
thought the salvation of the nation hinged. 

Tyler slept over it (more nights than were thought 
necessary), wept over it, prayed over it, and then 
vetoed it. Words cannot describe the frenzied fury 
of the party. 

In the evening a noisy disorderly crowd gathered 
about the Executive Mansion and hissed and anathe- 
matized the President. Within the brilliantly 
lighted house, sipping champagne, sat the smiling, 
triumphant Democrats, congratulating him upon the 
"courageous and patriotic step" he had taken. 

Shortly after, Clay dramatized the visit before the 
Senate, in a satire so striking and artistic that the 
victims themselves could but applaud. Imitating 
the style of the diifferent orators, the supposed 
speech of each was given with inimitable skill, and 
each was prefaced by a word-picture of the person 
of the speaker. Calhoun's was, " tall, careworn, 
with fevered brow, haggard cheek and eye, intensely 
gazing, looking as if he were dissecting the last and 
newest abstraction which sprang from some meta- 
physician's brain, and muttering to himself, in half- 
uttered words, ' This is indeed a crisis ! ' " 

The humorous picture of Buchanan, introducing 
the Democratic Senators, was so amusing to him 
that he answered it in the same vein. 

The press and people of the opposition denounced 



MRS. LETITIA CHRISTIAN TYLER. 2O9 

the President as a renegade, a name which has ever 
since clung to him ; he retorted that he never did 
endorse the measure. 

As the United States Bank never had a second 
birth under succeeding administrations, and the 
government has not collapsed, it seems unjust to 
say that he earned his sobriquet then, — rather say 
that he was wiser than his compeers. National re- 
quirements never become ''obsolete ideas." 

Minor troubles rose in different states, which had 
to be suppressed by the strong arm of the law, 
backed by the military. " Little Rhody," the pin-head 
state, raised the cry of rebellion and undertook to 
carry matters with a high hand. The cry of treason 
was no wolf story. The bogus governor was caught, 
tried, convicted, and had Jackson been on the 
throne, his ideal gallows, fashioned after Haman's, 
would have been set right up ; as it was, bolts and 
bars kept him in duress until the settlement of the 
*' Suffrage Difficulties " drew out his fangs, and Dorr 
was pardoned. 

Some of the patroons of New York refused to pay 
their rent, even killed the tax-collectors, tarred and 
feathered the timid citizens who would rather pay 
the nominal exaction, under an old Dutch law, of a 
*'few bushels of wheat, three or four fat fowl, and a 
day's work with horses and wagon per year " than 
break the law, resist the officers, and bring ruin upon 



2IO MRS. LETITIA CHRISTIAN TYLER. 

their families. United States troops suppressed 
the patroons, and time has suppressed the law. 

Mormon institutions are tolerated by the United 
States government, but the people of Illinois re- 
solved that if the sect were to live and grow, her 
soil was not to be polluted by the practice of their 
religious tenets. Around the Nauvoo settlement, 
mob-law prevailed for three days, the town was 
shelled, the leader torn from the arm of the authori- 
ties, to whom he had given himself up for safety 
and killed. The charter of Nauvoo was repealed by 
the legislature of Illinois, and the Mormons wended 
their way to Council Bluffs, and thence to Utah. 

After Mr. Tyler's second veto of Whig measures, 
all his cabinet resigned, save Webster, who remained 
for a purpose. Troubles in the northeast were thick- 
ening and war with England threatening. 

Lord Ashburton was in Washington with orders 
to try negotiation. The preliminaries had been 
entered upon and the Secretary of State was bent 
upon concluding it. That it was brought to a suc- 
cessful issue by his masterly diplomacy was a cause 
of congratulation, and he termed it the greatest 
achievement of his life. The old sore was at last 
healed — England relinquished the right of impress- 
ment, and satisfactory boundaries were fixed ; save 
Oregon, which then was hardly thought worth own- 
ing, and the cod-fisheries, there seemed to be noth- 



MRS. LETITIA CHRISTIAN TYLER. 211 

ing left for the United States and England to 
wrangle over. 

In the flush of success, Mr. Webster said to a 
friend : *' There have been periods when I could have 
kindled a war, but, I remembered that I was negotia- 
ting for a Christian country, with a Christian coun- 
try, and that we were all living in the nineteenth 
century of the Christian era. My duty was clear and 
plain." 

When the annexation of Texas was mooted, Mr. 
Webster could not endorse the measure ; the Presi- 
dent perceptibly cooled towards him and he resigned 
his position. 

Tyler's term was drawing to a close. He was 
hated by one party and despised by the other ; his 
personal clique was so small, that it was dubbed by 
Clay as the " corporal's guard." His sobriquet may 
now be said to have been fairly earned. From the 
first, his ruling ambition had been to add the " lone 
star " state to the Union. Could he succeed, he 
might yet bind laurels about his brow and create 
a party in his favor. Every engine was set in 
motion. By request, General Jackson wrote a letter 
endorsing the measure. Calhoun was offered the 
place of premier, which he accepted, and his state, 
rampant as ever, raised the cry of "Texas or dis- 
union." The entire South was for annexation, but 
they repudiated Tyler. 



212 MRS. LETITIA CHRISTIAN TYLER. 

Calhoun, by means of his able associates, legislated 
Texas into the Union, and the last official act of the 
President was to sign the bill for its admission. 
The thing for which he had worked and schemed 
was done, and his administration had the honor or 
dishonor of doing it. 

The second winter after the death of Mrs. Tyler, 
Mr. Gardiner of Gardiner's Island, in Long Island 
Sound, a wealthy and distinguished gentleman, who 
had been travelling over Europe with his young and 
accomplished daughter. Miss Julia, brought her to 
share in the social gayeties of Washington. She 
became at once the belle of the city. 

The widowed President, worn down by the un- 
happy state of political affairs, a connoisseur of beau- 
tiful women, found solace and relaxation in the 
society of this cultivated girl, whom he soon began 
to woo. 

Tragedy was so mixed with the love-making, that 
the pair were able to keep it secret until it ended in 
marriage. The President, the cabinet, with other 
guests, among whom were Mr. Gardiner and his 
daughter, were invited by Captain Stockton to a sail 
upon the Potomac, in the war steamer "Princeton" 
to witness the testing of the " Peacemaker," a new 
cannon. Before the ceremony, the guests sat in the 
cabin, gayly jesting and sipping wine. At length the 
captain said that all was ready. The gentlemen, 



MRS. JULIA GARDINER TYLER. 213 

with the exception of the President, sprang to their 
feet and went up the companionway. The gunner 
stood at his post, the company were ranged in a 
semicircle, and the captain only waited for the pres- 
ence of the Chief Magistrate to give the signal. A 
second time, word was sent to the President that all 
was ready, and it was gently hinted that he had 
better go on deck. 

Still he lingered ; what cared he for a cannon or a 
cannon's voice when he could bandy repartees with a 
fair, fascinating young girl, watch her blushes, and 
strive to win a love glance from her bright 
eyes ? 

The men on deck tired of the delay and grew res- 
tive. The captain gave the word, the gunner did his 
duty ; something was wrong, somebody had blun- 
dered, the ball burst the cannon. The explosion, the 
shrieks of the wounded, roused the President from 
the love dream which probably saved his life. Two 
members of the cabinet and the father of Miss 
Gardiner lay among the dead and dying. Their 
bodies were taken to the Executive Mansion, and 
there the funeral services were performed. 

Miss Gardiner went to New York with the body of 
her father. This shocking catastrophe, which cast a 
gloom over the capital, and sent a thrill of horror 
throughout the country, blotted out the remem- 
brance of the fascinations which Miss Gardiner had 



214 ^^S. JULIA GARDINER TYLER. 

seemed to possess for the widower of the White 
House. 

A few months later, the President announced that 
urgent business required him to make a flying visit 
to New York. At that time, Miss Gardiner lived in 
Lafayette Place, between the Bowery and Broadway, 
a reo:ion rich in sfolden memories to old New 
Yorkers, who are to-day mourning lest the quaint 
and monastic street in the heart of the city must 
give way to the march of improvement. The day 
after his arrival, he took Miss Gardiner to the 
Church of the Ascension, corner of Fifth Avenue 
and Tenth Street, and in a strictly private way made 
her his wife. 

It was a social sensation which took New York by 
surprise ; they fired a hundred guns in honor of the 
event. The President's " urgent business " was 
ended, and he at once installed his bride as mistress 
of the Executive Mansion. 

The lady received guests, dispensed hospitality 
with a queenly grace, and brought a gleam of sun- 
shine upon the Tyler administration. The splenetic 
John Randolph would say, " She is altogether the 
best man of the two." 

The spring after the President's marriage, his term 
of office expired, which was an unspeakable relief to 
the nation and probably to himself, for the land 
was teeming with murmurs and vituperation ; save 



MRS. JULIA GARDINER TYLER. 215 

among officeholders, there were none to do him 
honor. 

Historians, while condemning his administration, 
have tried to throw the mantle of charity about him 
by saying he was in a false position, a Democrat 
elected by the Whigs, it was not in the power of 
man to please, but he was once the endorser of 
Henry Clay. 

He had polished manners, a mind of rare culture, 
ample means, an elegant home in Sherwood Forest, 
loving sons and daughters, a beauteous voung wife, 
and had it not been for the storm of war and rebel- 
lion that swept over the land, and which his doc- 
trines and influence had helped to foster, he might 
have lived out his days in calm, happy retire- 
ment. 

When Virginia seceded from the Union, he 
renounced his allegiance to the United States and 
joined the Confederates. He was the president of 
the Peace Commissioners who came to Washington 
in the last days of Buchanan's regime and accom- 
plished nothing. 

He was spared from drinking the lees from the 
bitter cup pressed so closely to Southern lips, as he 
died in January, 1862. He lies in an unmarked, 
neglected grave, in Hollywood cemetery, Richmond. 
If an appropriation were asked from the legislature 
of Virginia, or from Congress for a memorial tablet 



2l6 MRS. JULIA GARDINER TYLER. 

to the memory of John Tyler, it would probably be 
refused, or, at least, raise a wrangle. 

As in life, so at death was his position an anoma- 
lous one, — in rebellion asfainst the frovernment of 
which he was once the supreme head and had sworn 
to protect. 

His estate was ruined, and in the course of years 
the ancestral property of Mrs. Tyler became in- 
volved. In 1879, she asked a pension from Con- 
gress. That Congress responded with the amount 
given to widows of presidents is a mark that the old 
sectional bitterness is crushed out ; that the govern- 
ment knows no North, no South ; that every star in 
the grand old flag is in its place, waving over the 
land, made free. 

A few years since, Mrs. Tyler bought a beautiful 
place in Richmond, which is now her home. Now 
and then she visits Washington, and the few who 
can remember her as a girl and a bride, say she still 
has traces of the beauty and grace which made her 
the belle of the capital more than forty years ago. 

Her portrait, in bridal dress and veilj is hanging in 
the White House, and was the second portrait per- 
mitted to hano- there. 

Since the marriage of Mrs. Cleveland, she has lost 
i the distinction of beins: the only woman who ever 



wedded a President of the United States. 

She is a devout member of the Catholic Church. 



MRS. POLK. 

Miss Sarah Childress was the daughter of a 
Tennessee farmer, near Murfreesboro ; one of those 
brave, enterprising men, who had stepped into the 
forest, and with his own right arm cut down trees, 
built a home, to which every passing year added 
increased ease and plenty, — in time was called rich 
by those who lived about him. 

His own boyhood had been spent in work and 
poverty, in a region where books were rare, and 
schools open only for a few weeks in winter. 

His circumstances were not as his father's had 
been, and as his children passed from infancy to 
youth, his one thought was to give them a chance 
of acquiring an education which had never come to 
himself. 

Jhe Moravians, a learned sect, descended from 
ttie old Hussites, of Bohemia, had established board- 
ing-schools in Germany, England, and the United 
States. One in the neighboring state. North Car- 
olina, had a name for strict discipline and thorough 
teaching. The father planned better than he knew 
when he gave to the care of these brothers the little 

217 



2l8 MRS. POLK. 

girl, who was one day to be the first lady of the 
land. 

The old poets, Homer and Hesiod, tell us a pretty 
story, if it be not true (why may it not be true ? ), 
that around the cradle of mortals sit the Parcae, 
three old women ; one presides at birth, one cuts 
the thread that links the mortal part to the immor- 
tal ; Homer says not Jupiter himself can stay her 
hand when once she has lifted her scissors. The 
second sister, Lachesis, spins and weaves the events 
and actions of human life. Had the old crone whis- 
pered in Farmer Childress's ear, the secrets of the 
web she was weaving for his child, he could not 
have acted a wiser part. 

The little Sarah was dark-skinned, black-eyed — 
looked more as if she were an Italian or a Spanish 
child than an American, full of fun, and so very 
intelligent that the learned brothers guided her 
studies and watched her progress with delight. 

Yet the school life was short in those days, — it 
was not thought wise that girls should have too 
much learning, — it rather made them objects of ridi- 
cule. Her cheerfulness, her flashing wit, her hand- 
some face, and well-bred manners, made her a 
favorite among the townspeople, the pride and joy 
of her father's heart ; her mother had died while 
she was yet an infant. 

The gay, young people, and the open hospitality 



MRS. POLK. 219 

of the Childress's farm brought a crowd of visitors. 
One came, coolly put his feet beneath the farmer's 
social board, partook of all the country pleasures, 
yet he had but one intent, — that was to rob. Be- 
fore she knew it, he had Miss Sarah's heart in his 
keeping. 

When a man has played the game of love and 
won his point, he goes to the father with confident 
boldness, and without any feeling, remorse, or a 
shadov/ of shame, asks to take away the girl who 
for two decades or more has been loved, petted, the 
charm of the father's heart and the mother's life. 

This lover was eight years the girl's senior, a 
rising lawyer, and a member of the State Legisla- 
ture, called James K. Polk. 

With her teens went her maidenhood. At twenty 
she was the wife of a popular politician. Weddings 
in the country were followed by days of merry- 
making and festive pleasures. The popularity of 
the bride, and the prominent position of the groom, 
gave special zest to this occasion. 

With uncommon intelligence and the fondness of 
a young wife, Mrs. Polk threw herself into her hus- 
band's career. If he bowed at the shrine of the 
Hero of the Hermitage, so bowed she. 

This marriage was in the exciting year that 
Jackson ran in the presidential race with Adams, 
and Adams won. The general assumed a careless 



220 MRS. POLK. 

cheerfulness, but was nursing up wrath against all 
who opposed him. Polk opposed Adams through 
his entire administration, and in the next campaign 
used all his powerful influence to defeat him, and 
place Jackson in power. When he was himself a 
candidate for the presidency, the old man was not 
ungrateful, but worked and schemed ; at the end, 
hobbled to the polls, and threw what proved to be 
his last vote for one he called his protege. 

A year after the marriage, Mr. Polk was elected 
representative to Congress, and re-elected for four-' 
teen successive sessions. It was with delight that 
Mrs. Polk entered upon the social pleasures of the 
capital. She made herself mistress of all the ins 
and outs of the political world ; yet she was a 
womanly woman, and had no desire to shine as a 
disputant in the political arena. Men of both par- 
ties sat at her hospitable board, but with wonderful 
tact she kept politics in the background, and by her 
ready wit and rare conversational powers threw a 
charm over all her guests. 

In 1839, Mr. Polk declined entering the contest 
for re-election, that he might be a candidate for the 
office of Governor of Tennessee. 

He stumped the state for himself, as was the 
Southern custom. On the fairest terms with his 
popular opponent, his ambition was aroused, and he 
went in to win. Day and night he worked, flew 



MRS. POLK. 221 

from east to west, from north to south, seemed to 
know no weariness ; it was said that he did not 
remove his boots during the campaign. 

His private life, and his record as an honest poli- 
tician were spotless. He offered no terms, made no 
bargains, gave his past integrity as his gage. His 
frank manners and thrilling eloquence won the 
masses, who called him the " Napoleon of the 
Stump," — a title that both parties conceded was 
fairly won, and at a moment's notice he could make 
STOod. Success crowned his efforts, and the sfover- 
nor's mansion at Nashville was the popular resort 
of all Tennesseeans. 

About this time, Mrs. Polk embraced the Presby- 
terian faith, which extreme converts twist into some- 
thing cold and ascetic. Christians in the full sense 
of the word (perhaps St, Simeon Stylites was), yet, 
in giving up innocent amusements, they make those 
outside the pale feel that the Master's burden is 
heavy. 

In His sad mission, we have but one record that 
He ever entered the house of feasting and gayety, — 
then, that nothing might be wanting to make the 
occasion complete, we read that He worked one of 
His mighty miracles. 

Mrs. Polk's friends thought she carried her first 
zeal to asceticism, but over and above her austerities 
there was a sweetness of disposition, gracefulness and 



222 MRS. POLK. 

ease of manner, with such unfailing courtesy, that 
she won favor from every one who approached her. 

During the fierce campaign of Harrison and Tyler, 
when politicians were stirred almost to madness, her 
politeness alike to Democrat and Whig never failed ; 
a strong partisan of Van Buren's', she never paraded 
it. 

In 1844, her husband was in the very maelstrom of 
politics. His nomination for the presidency was the 
first message ever sent over telegraphic wires. 

In those days there were mighty giants in the 
land. James K. Polk was trotted out as a well- 
groomed, " dark horse," and pressed to the front. 

His opponent, Henry Clay, who was the idol of the 
Whig party, soon found that the "dark horse" was 
of the Arabian breed, sensitive, high-spirited, never 
flinched at any barrier. The grand old man whom 
the nation loved, yet failed to honor, was distanced 
in the race. 

Some said Polk came into power by fraud ; others 
said, by sheer good luck, he was a pigmy beside the 
giants ; and a larger number asked, " Who is Polk ^ " 

Back of if all was the old feud between North 
and South. Tyler's parting benediction had been 
the annexation of Texas. Southerners stood with 
carving knives in hand ; nine states they thought to 
be about the right number, none much less than 
New York in size, and all for the solid South. The 



I 



MRS. POLK. 223 

Mexicans claimed the whole of Texas, though she 
had maintained her independence for nine years ; 
besides, there was a dispute as to her boundaries. 
The bold Sam Houston claimed that he had con- 
quered his way to the Rio Grande, while the Mexi- 
cans denied his crossing the Nueces. 

It was supposed that the Mexicans would have 
pluck enough to make a contest over their spoliations, 
and to that contest Polk was pledged; therein lay 
the mettle of the "dark horse." 

Mr. Polk felt that the haste in annexing Texas had 
snatched some of the laurels which should have been 
bound about his own brow, nevertheless, in his in- 
augural he sang the proper exultant paeans, and 
promised to hold fast to the state, which the astute 
Calhoun, rather than Tyler, had clutched. 

His closing theme was Oregon. He declared that 
it was not to be divided, and asserted that our title to 
it was " clear and unquestionable." 

Jackson had advised him upon the subject, and his 
advice sounded like that of a certain father to his 
son : " Get money, my son, honestly if you can, but 
get it." 

Well, the president had thrown down a gage to two 
foreign governments, aroused the ire of his oppo- 
nents, and created a jealousy among his friends. 
England's premier's comment upon the message 
was a "blustering announcement." 



224 > MRS. POLK. 

Responsibilities crowded upon the president, and 
embarrassments weighed him down ; the treasury was 
depleted, and there was no settled basis upon which 
to rest for filling it. 

No wonder that his hair blanched, his health failed, 
his step became that of an old man, and that he bore 
an air of lang-uor and exhaustion. 

At the time when the Presidents come into power, 
many of the wives have passed middle age, and, used 
only to country life, have entered upon the duties of 
the Executive Mansion with shrinking and dread. 
The position is a big sugarplum, but it comes so late 
it has no sweetness. Even Mrs. Washington com- 
plained, said things were not as they should be ; her 
day had gone by to enjoy the triumph. 

Mrs. Polk was a childless wife, and, in the full ma- 
turity of her matronly charms, had already won a 
high position in Washington society. When her day 
of triumph came, she stepped to the front with ease, 
grace, and unmixed pleasure. She has come down in 
the annals of the White House as one of its most 
popular mistresses, yet in her day there were com- 
plaints that she sometimes forgot that she was pre- 
siding over the nation's house, — seemed to think it 
her private home, to be ordered according to the 
formalities of her rigid, Puritan life. 

Mrs. John Adams had introduced the custom of 
offering cake and wine at levees. Jackson thought 



I 



MRS. POLK. 225 

cake nothing without cheese, and so had added that 
to the inciin. 

More than half a century had gone by since we 
had cut the leading strings by which England held 
us in hand, and set up housekeeping for ourselves. 
Washington, an aristocrat by birth, bred in vice- 
regal courts, trained by the courtly Fairfax, held a 
Republican Court on England's royal plan. Only 
the upper classes were admitted, and those under 
court regulations as to dress. No clasping of hands, 
only sweeping curtsies, and majestic bows for the 
majesty of the United States. 

Times were not as they had been. Every succeed- 
ing reign had made our ways less and less like Eng- 
land's, more and more for the people. At stated times, 
the humblest in the land could cross the President's 
threshold, and take him and his wife by the hand. 

Mrs. Polk put an end to refreshments, but it was 
in no spirit of parsimony or teetotalism, only things 
were on a different basis. 

At the present time, the President's increased 
salary would not cover the cake and cheese, nor 
all the vintages of Europe supply the wine, even if 
the guests drank like gentlemen. 

Solomon, especially endowed with wisdom, said 
that there is a time for everything under the sun, 
but to a rigid Presbyterian there is no time to dance, 
so Mrs. Polk swept that custom aside. 



226 MRS. POLK. 

The Executive Mansion is not the place for balls ; 
Mrs. Polk pleasantly said to one who disapproved 
her act, *' You would not dance in the President's 
house, would you ? " To-day, the thing would not 
be tolerated ; but the one who took the initiative in 
these proper changes must, of course, come in for a 
certain amount of censure ; yet, her exceeding affa- 
bility tided her over, and where a less potent social 
factor would have gone down, she won. 

Like Lady Washington, she received her guests 
sitting ; once when she sat gayly talking with the 
crowd about her sofa, a distinguished South Carolin- 
ian raised his voice, he meant to be heard, and said : 
'■' Madam, there is a woe pronounced against you 
in the Bible." Every voice was hushed, and a 
scared look came over the faces of the guests, only 
Mrs. Polk was at ease, and while her black eyes 
flashed, she said, with a bright smile, *' What have I 
done ? " " Well, the Bible says, ' Woe unto you, 
when all men speak well of you.'" Again the 
guests breathed, and the wit and abandon went on 
still more merrily. 

In the last year of her stay in the Executive 
Mansion, there was a grand dinner party. Henry 
Clay, as the most honored guest, sat at Mrs Polk's 
right hand. In the happy manner and silvery tones 
which took every heart by storm, he said : ''Madam, 
I must say that in my travels, wherever I have been. 



MRS. POLK. 227 

in all companies and among all parties, I have heard 
but one opinion of you. All agree in commending 
your excellent administration of the domestic affairs 
of the White House. But," looking towards her 
husband, "as for that young gentleman there, I 
cannot say as much. There is some little difference 
of opinion in regard to the policy of Jns course." 

Mrs. Polk's happy gift at repartee never failed her. 
** Indeed," she said, " I am glad to hear that my 
administration is popular ; and in return for your 
compliment, I will say, that if the country should 
elect a Whig next fall, I know of no one whose 
elevation would please me more than that of Henry 
Clay. And I will assure you of one thing, if you do 
have occasion to occupy the White House on the 
fourth of March next, it shall be surrendered to you 
in perfect order, from garret to cellar." 

"Thank you, thank you!" said Mr. Clay, "I am 

certain that" in the uncertain sea of politics, 

Clay was glad to drown what he was certain of in 
the gay sh.outs of laughter given in applause of Mrs. 
Polk. 

The foreisrn ministers would often remark that 
not a crowned head in Europe could queen it more 
royally than the wife of the Republican President, 
but that her dark face fitted her rather for the crown 
of Spain than for any Anglo Saxon throne. 

Poets penned poems in her honor. One, perhaps 



228 MRS. POLK. 

by poetical license, compared her to the Pleiad, who 
forsook her home and broke the hearts of her sisters. 
Ovid puts it that the Pleiad, a daughter of the skies, 
by stooping to wed a mortal man, lost her celestial 
light, thus causing her sisters shame — a word never 
to be coupled with the name of Mrs. James K. Polk. 

Mr. Polk redeemed his pledge, and pushed on the 
war with Mexico. United States soldiers sat in the 
halls of the Montezumas and dictated terms of peace. 
Money was given the conquered people by the mil- 
lion, but New Mexico and California were the spoils 
of the victors. 

The giants of the North said it was done by might, 
not by right; that the war was unjust in its origin 
and slavery was its object. 

The carvers whetted their knives, and said, we can 
double the nine states and all for the solid South. 

Although the war had been opposed by the North, 
yet when it had been once declared, it patriotically 
joined hands with the South, and supported it in good 
faith. Webster and Clay, each gave a son and each 
lost. (My country, right or wrong !) 

Victory and possession brought forward the por- 
tentous subject that was so hydra-headed. A Her- 
cules could always be found to cut off, but not until 
Lincoln's administmtion was there an lolas to apply 
the burning iron. 

One, David Wilmot, had offered a bill in Congress, 



MRS. POLK. 229 

forbidding slavery in any territory to be acquired 
from Mexico. It had been lost when we had the 
territory to win, but now it was won, the Proviso 
had more interest and agitated many minds. 

Calhoun maintained that the territories were com- 
mon property, and that the people of the North and 
of the South should enter in and enjoy the land, each 
in its own way. 

Imagine Calhounists and Garrisonites dwelling 
side by side ! In comparison with the result, the 
explosion of dynamite would be but the effervescence 
of soda. 

There was a hue and cry throughout the land. A 
cry of "dissolution of the Union" came shrieking 
from the South. To complicate serious matters and 
make them more serious, the country was on the eve 
of a presidential election. 

Politicians can lash the people into fury, but some- 
times an unlooked-for event will mysteriously change 
the phase of affairs, and calm the passions of men. 
An El Dorado opened on the Pacific slope in 1848, 
just at the close of the war. Foreigners and natives, 
red men and white, flocked thither in crowds, but 
Northerners led the van and outnumbered all the 
rest. They were going to see no Southern carvers 
make mincemeat of the land where they had come 
to dwell — not they. When California knocked at 
the gate of the Union she came in free. 



230 MRS. POLK. 

If there be a pie with a plum, England is always 
ready to put in her thumb. In the days when Texas 
was an independent state, her cotton fields were 
very fair to English eyes. Somehow, and in some 
way, she had hoped to reap some advantage from 
them, but when the United States, with marvellous 
gastronomic skill, swallowed the pie whole, she lost 
the delicious plum. 

Before the victories beyond the Rio Grande had 
begun, the Oregon difficulty had assumed alarming 
proportions. More land on the American continent 
England will have, and she boldly makes a claim in 
the Northwest — says all Oregon down to the Califor- 
nia line is hers. Mr. Polk, as boldly and a little more 
so, says it is not. 

The country had been thought to be a wilderness 
and fur-bearing animals its only product. 

The fur companies of the two countries had 
trapped and traded at their different settlements, and 
the question of land ownership had hardly been 
raised. But for the missionary, Marcus Whitman, 
Mr. Webster would have traded off all Oregon for 
the cod fisheries in the northeast. 

The English had never thought to settle in the 
country, but when Americans with families did, in 
the rich valley of the Willamette, they thought there 
must be something juicy, which it behooved them to 
extract. 



MRS. POLK. 231 

Had Mr. Polk been autocrat, as well as cormorant, 
they would only have gained it by the measuring of 
swords and the firing of cannons ; but in the United 
States there was a Senate and House of Representa- 
tives ; in England, a Queen with a wise domestic 
counseller, and Lord John Russell for premier, and 
commissioners were appointed to negotiate. 

The states that had whipped England before they 
were born, had no fear of her now, when they were 
in full maturity, but there was a spirit of concession 
on both sides, and the dogs of war that Polk stood 
ready to unleash, were stayed by a compromise, 
which fixed the forty-ninth parallel as our northern 
boundary, instead of 54° 40^ which Mr. Polk and his 
supporters claimed. 

In Tyler's administration, Calhoun had offered the 
British government all north of the forty-ninth paral- 
lel. Buchanan renewed the offer, but the govern- 
ment remained stiff ; he withdrew it and, backed by 
Polk, it was " 54° 40' or fight." When the negotia- 
tions began, the outlook was very gloomy ; stocks 
fell and business men were alarmed. The proposi- 
tion to take what it had twice refused, came from the 
British government. 

The American Minister in London sent a whisper 
over the water that England had been outwitted — 
she neither knew the value of what she had relin- 
quished, nor did she know how deeply we were in- 



232 



MRS. POLK. 



volved with the Mexicans down upon the Rio 
Grande. 

One would think Mr. Polk's greed for territory 
might have been satiated. 

When he came into power the country was virtu- 
ally bounded by the Rocky Mountains ; now it 
swept from ocean to ocean ; the flag, that had been 
planted on the banks of the Sabine had moved down 
to the Rio Grande, and waved there by right. On 
the North, the government had been a little mixed as 
to memn et timin, but he had the happy conscious- 
ness that in his administration, it was peaceably 
adjusted. 

President Polk courteously welcomed General Tay- 
lor to the White House, and on the fifth of March, 
(the fourth being Sunday) rode with him to the 
Capitol and congratulated him, when he had taken 
the oath of ofihce, and came back a private citizen. 

His enemies said that he had been another Caesar, 

" ranging for revenge, 
With Ate by his side, come hot from helh" 

His friends said that he had kept the ''whiteness of 
his soul ;" with human wisdom, and human frailties, 
beset by politicians, it is as difficult for a man to 
go through an administration at the White House 
without soil, as it would be for a camel to go through 
the eye of a needle without being pinched. 



MRS. POLK. 233 

The last Sunday of Mrs. Polk's stay in Washing- 
ton the Presbyterian clergyman addressed her from 
the pulpit, and gave her the communion. To pastor 
and people, the day was a day of mourning. 

Mr. Polk had stepped round by round, from the 
State legislature to the Presidency, — had worked 
without ceasing ; now hardly past the prime of man- 
hood, with ample fortune, full of honors, he would 
take the rest he had so laboriously earned. 

Some time before he left Washington, he bought 
a fine house in Nashville. The grounds cover a 
whole square in the finest part of the city, known 
since as ** Polk Place." He went from the capital 
to his home by the way of the Southern States. 
He had schemed and imperilled, if not bartered, his 
integrity for the South, and in all the principal 
cities, he received splendid ovations. 

At New Orleans, he took a steamer up the Missi- 
sippi. It was the year that the cholera raged 
throughout the entire valley. He had a slight form 
of the dread disease on board the boat. He rallied, 
however, reached home in good spirits, and at once 
began to lay out his grounds, plan improvements, 
project a tour to Europe, even went so far as to 
enjiao-e a courier. That slisfht cholera attack had 
enfeebled his system, the disease seemed to return 
on him ; they didn't call it cholera, but chronic diar- 
rhoea. No alarm was felt for some days, but still 



234 MRS. POLK. 

the disease ran on, — medicine had no power to check 
it. Fear began to creep into Mrs. Polk's heart, and 
she sent to Columbia for the man who had been his 
physician for more than twenty years. 

The disease was checked ; the hearts of all about 
him bounded, and their pulses thrilled with hope ; a 
few days with good nursing and tonics, and all would 
be well. The stranfre lassitude still huns: about him ; 
he seemed to have no rallying power. His wife 
watched him with anguish ; she could see his 
strength go with the passing hours. His aged 
mother, who lived in the family, would creep in, 
throw herself upon her knees, and pray by his bed- 
side. An old man, who was a Methodist minister, 
and a friend of the family, would often steal in, sit 
by his side and read the Bible. 

Mr. Polk said that he was not afraid to die, but 
now that he was about to pass from this world into 
the unseen and unknown, he whispered that he 
would like the rite of baptism, and almost at the 
last, his old friend administered it. He died on the 
fifteenth of June, fifty-three years of age. 

This was the first great grief which had come into 
Mrs. Polk's happy, prosperous life, — a widow before 
she had rounded her forty-sixth year. Nearly forty 
years have gone by since that fatal June day, and 
still she lives at Polk Place. Time has softened her 
grief, but society has lost its charm ; ever since, she 



MRS. POLK. 235 

has lived retired, and grows more and more asceti- 
cally devout. As she longed for some companion- 
ship in the lonely hours, full of shadows of the past, 
she adopted a niece, who has ever since remained 
with her. 

She has always been treated with the respect and 
distinction to which her dignity and high position 
entitle her. For years, the Legislature in a body, 
visited her on New Year's Day. 

Delegations of Masons, Odd Fellows, Sons of 
Temperance, and Members of the General Assem- 
bly of Presbyterians often seek for an introduction 
to Polk Place, that they may pay their respects to 
its celebrated mistress. 

President Cleveland, in his tour of the Western 
States in 1887, had the honor of being received by 
her, and of presenting his fair young wife, so rapidly 
passing into history as one of the galaxy of brilliant 
women of the White House, to which the aged lady 
belongs. 

The calm, monotonous quiet into which Mrs. 
Polk's life had settled, was broken by the Civil 
War. All her sympathies were with the Confeder- 
ates ; with her birth and training it could hardly 
have been otherwise. 

Women of the North had little pity for their 
Southern sisters ; could little realize how outraged 
they felt, how their passions could rise to such a 



236 MRS. POLK. 

height, that if General Butler could have had a 
decent apology for his indecent order, their violent 
conduct gave it. To them the war was a war of 
invasion, an invasion of their dearest rights. What 
cared they for the grand old Union or the dear old 
flag.^ Their state had seceded, and they only longed 
that their star should be stricken from its azure 
folds. Husbands and sons had gone down to bloody 
graves, and the victors trod their streets and sat 
within their walls. Northern women mourned their 
dead, but they should have thanked God that 
they were neither tempted nor tried as Southern 
women. 

In those troublous days, Mrs. Polk's exalted dig- 
nity never forsook her. She welcomed the Confed- 
erate officers to her home, bade them Godspeed in 
their efforts for separation, and was buoyed by the 
hope that success would crown their efforts in the 
end. 

In February of 1862, she had the humiliation and 
grief of seeing Nashville occupied by the Union 
troops. Murfreesboro, her early home, was a battle- 
field, and there too, victory was on the side of the 
Union. 

When Sherman and other Union officers paid 
their respects to her they were treated with polite- 
ness, perhaps a little cold and formal, but strict and 
stately politeness still. 



MRS. POLK. 



237 



The war swept away a part of Mrs. Polk's large 
property, but she has been able to live at Polk Place 
in the style to which she has been used. Congress 
pays her the pension granted to the widows ^of the 
Presidents. 



MRS. TAYLOR. 

One claiming the power of foretelling future 
events, once whispered to Josephine that she would 
one day be the Empress of France. In the dark 
days of Robespierre, when the guillotine seemed 
nearer than a crown, the prophecy buoyed her spirits, 
and the hope of its fulfilment never faded from her 
mind. 

Had a sibyl whispered in the ear of Miss Margaret 
Smith, the daughter of a Maryland farmer, that she 
would one day be the wife of a President of the 
United States, and mistress of the White House, 
she would have laughed in derision. In the dark 
days of danger, which must come to a woman who 
follows a soldier husband into the red man's land, 
she would have thought it more likely that her scalp- 
locks would float from the belt of a savage. The 
belief in the fulfilment of such a prophecy would 
have darkened her life. The position would have 
had no charm, even if she could have turned to it 
from the altar, on her wedding day. 

She was born in the latter part of the last cen- 
tury, when the colonies were just crystallizing into a 
Union. She belonged to a good family, whose home 

238 



MRS. TAYLOR. 239 

was on the estate where the father of Mrs. J. O. 
Adams had formerly resided, in the rich farming 
districts of Maryland. With other girls of her class, 
she went to the village school ; at home she had a 
thorough domestic training. To queen it over a 
humble home, with one she loved, make the most of 
small means, was the highest point to which the 
girl's mind ever soared. 

She had turned twenty when she first met Zach- 
ary Taylor ; one, who was born in the wilderness, 
near the site of the present city of Louisville, and 
trained to frontier life. To avenge the bloody 
ravages of the Indians, incited by the English, fired 
the hearts of all the youth whose homes were sub- 
jected to their inroads. 

Young Taylor never thought it to be the road to 
fame, when he urged his father to help him to a 
commission. At the time that he almost despaired 
of ever obtaining it, an elder brother, who was a 
lieutenant, suddenly died. Through the aid of 
Madison, who was a relative and at that time Sec- 
retary of State, the commission was transferred to 
the young Zachary, then just twenty-four years of 
age. 

He had met, loved, wooed, and now, on lieuten- 
ant's pay, married Miss Margaret Smith. He joined 
the army at New Orleans and she followed him. 
Were his home in a log-cabin, tent, or barracks there 



240 MRS. TAYLOR. 

was hers. She would consent to no separation 
that could be avoided. Babies came, but the migra- 
tory, tented life, often upon the trail of the savages, 
was no place for babies. As soon as they could be 
removed with safety, they were sent to her family 
at the East, when of proper age placed at boarding- 
schools. Mother's love was not wanting, — the 
struggle of parting was no light one, but her pres- 
ence was the solace of her husband ; she could con- 
tribute to his comfort, and she loved him more than 
babies. 

In the beginning of the war of 1812, Taylor, who 
had been promoted to the rank of captain, was sent 
to command a fort on the Wabash, v/hich Harrison 
had built on his way to Tippecanoe. With only fifty 
men, and a third of those ill, he was attacked by a 
band of Indians, led by the brave Tecumseh himself. 
The horrors of that night could never be told in 
words ; just before midnight the war-whoop rang, 
the battle raged until morning ; the sick and the 
well fought on, nerved by the thought that it was 
better to die than fall into the hands of the merci- 
less foe. The long hours of agony went by — at 
sunrise, victory was on the side of the whites. 

This was the young captain's first separate com- 
mand, and so bravely had he played his part, that he 
was promoted to the rank of major. 

After this, he was sent to a frontier post in the 



MRS. TAYLOR. 24I 

West, and for three years saw no more active 
service. At the close of the war, the army was 
reduced ; he was not dismissed, but degraded in 
rank, and this always touches a soldier's pride. He 
resigned and went to farming. 

Now the wife was happy ; she could have a 
settled home with husband and children. It was a 
short-lived happiness ; through friends his rank was 
restored and he returned to the army ; was ordered 
to Green Bay, in Michigan, where for years he led a 
tedious, monotonous life, away from society but 
always cheered by the presence of his faithful, 
happy Margaret. 

In the Black Hawk war, he took an active but 
subordinate part, and was promoted to the rank of 
colonel. 

Once he had a command of fifty regulars and a 
band of Illinois volunteers ; the latter insisted that 
they were only enlisted to protect their own state. 
Taylor believed that they were in the right, but as a 
soldier he had no opinions. An order came in the 
night for him to cross the border. The soldiers, 
hearing of it, began to discuss the matter as if it 
were optional. 

Taylor quietly said: "Gentlemen and fellow- 
citizens ; the word has been passed on to me from 
Washington to follow Black Hawk, and to take you 
with me as soldiers. I mean to do both. There are 



242 MRS. TAYLOR. 

the flat-boats, drawn up on the shore ; here are 
Uncle Sam's men, drawn up behind you on the 
prairie." 

Taylor never indulged in empty threats and the 
men thought it safer to take to the boats. In a few 
hours they were on the trail of the savage foe. 

At the close of the war, he again sank into ob- 
scurity, defending the frontiers for twenty-four years. 

His domestic happiness had hitherto been perfect ; 
the one thought of his wife had ever been to minis- 
ter to his comfort. She would even prepare his food 
with her own hands. If food were scarce, she would 
see that there was no waste ; if poor, she, with the 
rare skill of a Maryland cook, could impart to it 
some tempting flavor, and then the dainty neatness 
with which it was served gave it an additional zest. 

One son and three daughters had been born to 
them, and now that they were grown and educated, 
were sometimes allowed to visit at the military post, 
where the colonel was stationed. 

Both he and his wife had a strong aversion to their 
girls' marrying into the army, and leading the lives 
they had led, — lives without a home ; then, what 
was a more serious thing, the lives of many of the 
offlcers were far from correct. Business men were 
the proper sort of husbands for their girls, and none 
other would be countenanced. 

While the colonel was away on a military tour of 



MRS. TAYLOR. 243 

inspection, Jefferson Davis, a young lieutenant, fresh 
from West Point, met the second daughter. Miss 
Sarah, and made love to her. The girl was by sev- 
eral years the younger, coy, shy, covered with 
blushes, yet his love tale was poured into willing 
ears ; her eyes told what her tongue would not utter. 
Parental consent was asked, and refused, decidedly 
refused. 

Colonel Taylor was not given to changing his 
mind, as the pair well knew. Jefferson Davis pro- 
posed an elopement, and the girl placed her hand in 
his. How often does a shy, timid maiden astonish 
her friends by fearlessly taking a step that would 
appal many a bolder girl. Young Davis resigned, 
and went to his home in Mississippi. 

When the father returned, the pair were married 
and gone. He was bitter in his wrath ; his girl was 
wanting in maidenly exiguity, in any sense of filial 
duty. 

For young Davis, his scorn knew no bounds : he 
was lost to all sense of honor ; he was no gentleman ; 
he would not ''touch his hand with a pair of tongs " 
(his favorite expression). A runaway marriage was 
never to be condoned nor forgiven. 

In a few months the young wife died, and the 
father's heart had never softened towards her. His 
shame at the marriage, and his grief at her death 
only embittered him the more against the man who 



244 M^S- TAYLOR. 

had robbed him. If one dared to plead his youth 
and his love as an excuse, the father would only 
shake his head and say, " No honorable man would 
have done it." 

In 1836, there was a fresh difficulty with the 
Indians. Osceola was the son of an English trader 
and a Seminole squaw. He had been left with his 
mother, and, when grown to manhood, there was 
nothing about him that would suggest that he was 
a half-breed. He married, and his wife was taken 
from him, claimed as a slave. Burning with revenge, 
he gathered a band of his tribe, and put to death a 
garrison 01 more than a hundred men. Soon after, 
he was captured and placed in irons. His wrongs 
pleaded for him, and he was released. 

Indians are treacherous by nature, and these Sem- 
inoles had been so often wronged that they were not 
safe neighbors. The United States government pro- 
posed to move them beyond the Mississippi, and most 
of the chiefs had signed a treaty to that effect. The 
mass of the Indians had no mind to go, and denied 
that their chiefs had a right to sell their hunting- 
grounds. 

Osceola took advantage of the times and the anger 
of his tribe, to stir up a war of resistance. He gath- 
ered seven hundred warriors and encamped in the 
almost inaccessible swamps about Lake Okeechobee. 

Colonel Taylor was recalled from the frontiers, to 



J 



MRS. TAYLOR. 245 

subdue and remove these savages whom no treaty 
could bind. 

It was a position full of peril, and the miasma of 
the swamps was even more to be dreaded than the 
savages. With soldierly obedience he came, and 
with soldierly skill he penetrated the swamps in the 
very face of the foe. In less than three hours the 
Indians were routed, with heavy loss on both sides. 

In his official report, Taylor said : " Around Lake 
Okeechobee, I passed through the most trying scenes 
of my life." The victory and his gallantry were re- 
warded by the rank of general. 

It has been said that Taylor never swore. The 
fact was once stated in his presence : " Not often," 
said he, " but in the Everglades of Florida, where 
heroes were battling and falling, I met a company of 
Missouri troops, with their backs to the enemy. 
Upon being questioned, they said that they were 
ordered to the rear. * You lie ? you scoundrels ! ' 
I can't quite remember, but I think that there was 
some pretty heavy cursing done on that day," he 
added. 

When the summons to Florida came, Mrs. Taylor, 
as usual, prepared to go with her husband. There 
was a cry from all her friends, — she was reckless, she 
was foolhardy. No persuasions nor arguments could 
move her. In the barracks at Tampa she was going 
to settle ; if her husband were killed, life would not 



246 MRS. TAYLOR. 

be worth having ; if he were wounded, she could 
nurse him ; if not him, his brave men. Going ? of 
course she was going ; and she went. 

After the battle, besides the dead there were one 
hundred and twelve wounded officers and soldiers, and 
these were brought to Tampa. The work Mrs. Taylor 
had foreseen had come, and bravely she performed her 
part. She assumed the care of the hospital, bound 
up wounds and soothed tiie suffering. Her skill in 
cooking was brought into full play ; her presence of 
mind, her cheerful, even temper lightened all the 
weary hours. 

The Indians were too much broken to risk another 
battle, but for two more years General Taylor was 
kept in the Everglades of Florida, then, at his own 
request, he was relieved and stationed over the south- 
west. 

Five happy years followed for Mrs. Taylor. The 
family headquarters were at Baton Rouge, where the 
barracks were more comfortable than any to which 
she had ever been used ; yet she turned from them 
to a picturesque cottage formerly occupied by the 
Spanish Commandant, which pleased her fancy. It 
had only four rooms, but there was a wide veranda 
upon all sides ; better than all a little plot of ground 
for a garden. The house was in a tumbledown con- 
dition, but after some repairs, she and her daughter, 
Miss Betty, transformed it into one of the cosiest, 



MRS, TAYLOR. 247 

pleasa«itest homes in all that region. To please 
them, General Taylor bought the house and a large 
piece of land adjoining. 

With a house of her own, a kitchen garden which 
she could watch and tend, a small dairy, it seemed to 
Mrs. Taylor like the home life of her girlhood, for 
which she had so longed. 

Alas ! a cloud was gathering, which was to dissi- 
pate all her happiness and in time break up her 
home. 

General Taylor had chosen this post, that he 
might give his family a settled home, hoping to com- 
bine plantation life with his military duties. 

Mr. Polk's plan for redeeming his pledge for a 
Mexican war, was to shield his administration from 
responsibility or blame and throw it upon the United 
States troops, hoping that by tricky, ambiguous 
orders, they would provoke Mexicans to an attack. 
A man less honest than General Taylor might have 
fallen into the snare. He would ride into the very 
jaws of death if such were his orders, questioning 
neither the right nor the wrong ; without orders he 
would remain as fixed as if the jaws of death had 
shut down upon him. 

With one so intractable, government was obliged 
to show its hand and a direct order to advance to the 
Rio Grande was given. 

The calm, happy life in the Spanish cottage was 



248 MRS. TAYLOR. 

at an end. The husband, who for so many years, 
had contended with savages, must now enter upon a 
war with a civilized, Christian nation — a war of 
invasion, where the wife could not follow. 

The barracks at Baton Rouge, which had been 
nearly empty, were now crowded with young officers' 
wives, who were almost hysterical at parting with 
their husbands, going to battle for the first time. 
The general's wife and Miss Betty put aside their 
own grief, flitted about the quarters, listened to the 
story of each one, and sympathized with all. The 
brave front and cheerful words of their superiors, 
shamed women who had given themselves up to 
clamorous grief. 

Mrs. Taylor was a devout member of the Episcopal 
Church, and one of the chief regrets of her life had 
been that she was deprived of its services. For the 
first time in her garrison life she was at a military 
post, crowded with women from her own rank in life. 
With the townsfolks and the officers' wives, enough 
people could be gathered to warrant the opening of a 
chapel. Under her supervision a room was fitted up 
in one of the garrison buildings ; when there was no 
rector, the service was read. 

That little chapel work has never ended. Years 
after Mrs. Taylor died, the society built a church, 
which is flourishing in Baton Rouge to-day. 

The Mexicans said that the move of the United 



MRS. TAYLOR. 249 

States troops to the banks of the Rio Grande was an 
open declaration of war ; still they made no attack. 
Guns ready shotted were placed opposite Matamoras 
and its harbor blockaded ; still the President main- 
tained that the Mexicans had no cause for hostilities. 

Mexicans and a great many otJicr people were of a 
different mind. A small force crossed the river to 
take a look at the doings of the United States troops 
and they in turn went to see why the Mexicans had 
crossed. 

Of course, a skirmish came out of it ; blood was 
spilled and men were captured. 

]\Ir. Polk had now the state of things that pleased 
him. Mexicans had invaded the soil of the United 
States and shed the blood of its soldiers. No hold- 
ing back now — artillery men behind the shotted 
guns could blaze away. 

Soon came the news of the victory on the field of 
Palo Alto, followed by that of Resaca de la Palma. 
American cocks crowed, the national bird flapped its 
wings and shrieked. " On, to the Halls of the Mon- 
tezumas," shouted the people. 

Taylor, who had been buried nearly all his life on 
the frontiers amid savages, was the hero of the 
day. 

People began to be curious about him. Well, he 
had a good, honest face, but his figure was nothing 
in his favor ; he was dumpy, short in the body, and 



250 , MRS. TAYLOR. 

his legs too short for his body. Never but once had 
he tried to set off his person by fine feathers. 

Commodore Conner, stationed in the gulf to co- 
operate with General Taylor, proposed to pay him a 
visit. The commodore, if not the dude of the navy, 
was noted for his nicety in dress. The general's 
roundabouts, trousers tucked in boots, and coarse 
straw hat, with brim flapping about his ears, made 
him equally noted for his style. A visit from a 
grandee of the navy put him all in a flutter. 

He had an ill-fitting military suit at the bottom of 
his chest, but his oldest soldiers had never seen it 
worn. Now it was to be donned, as his guest would 
of course be in full uniform, surrounded by his offi- 
cers. Uncomfortable and ill at ease the general sat. 

The commodore had all the instincts of a gentle- 
man ; arrayed in plain white drilling, he walked 
quietly and alone into the general's tent. It would 
have been hard to tell which was the more astonished 
but it was the 2:eneral who was disconcerted. 

In the autumn, the bloody battle of Monterey was 
fought ; the town and the military stores fell into the 
hands of the Americans. 

After this, most of the troops were withdrawn and 
sent to General Scott, who was making an advance 
on the city of Mexico ; for five months Taylor re- 
mained inactive at Monterey, simply defending the 
place. 



MRS. TAYLOR. 25 I 

Finally the government sent on reinforcements 
and the general made an onward movement. Fifty 
miles from the town, he was met by a Mexican mes- 
senger, bearing a flag of truce and demanding a sur- 
render ; informing him that his small force of five 
thousand men was surrounded by twenty-one thou- 
sand Mexicans, commanded by Santa Anna himself. 

" General Taylor never surrenders," was his 
answer. To his officers he said : *' were they twice 
that number, it would make no difference." To his 
troops, '' soldiers, I intend to stand here, not only so 
long as a man remains, but so long as a piece of a 
man is left." 

His intentions known, he made his preparations 
for a battle, which lasted for ten hours with doubtful 
results. 

The general sat through it all, in an exposed posi- 
tion, on his white horse, nursing his leg thrown over 
the pommel of his saddle. His staff could not pre- 
vail upon him to move away. The entire left wing 
of his army was turned, and all seemed lost. The 
Mexicans shouted themselves hoarse, as if the vic- 
tory were won ; for the time it really was. 

Before General Taylor made his advance across the 
Sabine, he had called for volunteers from Mississippi 
and Louisiana. The war was popular at the South. 
Sons of the first families in Mississippi had formed 
a regiment and chosen Jefferson Davis for their 



252 MRS. TAYLOR. 

colonel. In the first battle, he had been slightly 
wounded, but had figured on every field. By some 
tacit understanding, he and the general never met. 

At the narrow pass of Buena Vista, when all was 
chaos and the day seemed lost, Taylor thundered to 
his flying troops to turn and advance again. Colo- 
nel Davis, who handled his Mississippi Rifles in so 
masterly a way that they were the first to re-form, 
proudly standing his ground, appealed to other regi- 
ments to '' stay and re-form behind that wall," point- 
ing to his Mississippians. 

Giving the Southern yell, a dash was made, Davis 
setting the example of intrepidity and recklessness 
of personal danger ; the band fought like the Titans, 
the Mexicans said, like devils. He who had been so 
''dauntless in love," proved that he was no "dastard 
in war." Perhaps the thought that he was fighting 
under the eye of the father of his dead wife, who 
had coupled his name with dishonor, nerved his 
arm. 

The astonished Mexicans, unprepared for the on- 
slaught, had broken and fled. 

Half of the brave Mississippians lay stretched 
upon the ground. The bold colonel was severely 
wounded in the early part of the action, but sat his 
horse steadily till the day was won, and refused to 
delegate any part of his duties to his subordinate 
officers. 



MRS. TAYLOR. 253 

The general had watched the band in the greatest 
excitement, now he fairly danced with joy, yet the 
tears were streaming down his cheeks — the victory 
was won, his honor was saved. 

On that blcody ground, Zachary Taylor and Jef- 
ferson Davis met for the first time. Taylor em- 
braced him as a son, and the teais of the two 
mingled for the young wife whose body had lain 
for so many years on the banks of the Mississippi. 

Success had made the war immensely popular. 
Cass said it would not hurt the United States to 
swallow Mexico whole. Indeed, so expansive were 
the ideas of the administration that the people would 
hardly have been astonished to have seen South 
America served as a second course, — the waters of 
Magellan, the wine of the banquet, iced by the 
Antarctic Ocean. 

The work of " Rough-and-Ready," as his soldiers 
lovingly called him, was done, and he came back to 
the Spanish cottage in triumph. His immense 
popularity suggested to Whig politicians that he 
might be an available candidate in the coming 
presidential campaign. 

When the proposition of raising him to the high- 
est civil office was first broached to him, he promptly 
pronounced it as too absurd to be thought of for 
a moment, — declared his unfitness. The simple- 
minded old soldier was overruled, and at last yielded. 



254 ^-f^S. TAYLOR. 

on condition that he should be required to give no 
pledges. He alarmed and astonished his sponsors 
by allowing a letter to be printed, in which he frankly 
confessed that he had only ''crude impressions on 
matters of policy," but that he considered himself 
*'in the hands of the people," the people's candidate, 
and if elected the *' people's President." 

Fearlessly outspoken as he was, he became the 
nominee of the Whig party. 

The rabid ones, termed " Conscience Whigs," 
wouldn't vote for him because he owned slaves, 
made a split in the party, and set up a candidate of 
their own — no less a personage than the ex-Pres- 
ident, Martin Van Buren, which seemed almost 
grotesque. 

Webster said that the Whig nomination was one 
"not fit to be made," termed the nominee "an igno- 
rant frontier colonel," as he really was. 

If the buzzing of the presidential bee began to 
have music for General Taylor's ears, it had none for 
his wife ; she was more bitter in her opposition than 
the Abolitionists, said that his fixed habits would not 
permit him to live under the constraints of a life at 
the capital, that it was a plot to deprive her of his 
society, and shorten his life by unnecessary care and 
responsibility. 

His victories and his sterling integrity made him 
the successful candidate. Mrs. Taylor's private 



•»&«. 



MRS. TAYLOR. 255 

home, which had been her delight, was private no 
longer. Friends and politicians and the curious 
thronged every room, which made her life a burden. 

The general resigned his place in the army, the 
Spanish cottage was given up, and the family pro- 
ceeded to Washington. 

General Taylor must have overcome his objections 
to army men as husbands, for his eldest daughter 
married an army surgeon, and Miss Betty his third 
and favorite daughter, had recently married Major 
Bliss, his chief-of-staff in the Mexican War, and 
was another West Pointer. 

Mrs. Taylor declined having anything to do with 
the receptions or hospitalities of the Executive 
Mansion. She selected rooms for herself, which 
best suited her ideas of housekeeping, and, as in 
barracks, attended to the personal comforts of her 
husband. Her mode of living, and smoking a corn- 
cob pipe were jeered at by the opposition, hoping 
thereby to lessen the popularity of the President. 

Americans are given to bowing down to military 
heroes, even if they be unlettered and unpolished. 
Old Rough-and-Ready was the hero of the day, and 
if levees must be held and state dinners must be 
given he had a young and an attractive daughter to 
receive and dispense hospitality at his table. 

The inaugural procession was more imposing than 
that of any of his predecessors. The President- 



256 MRS. TAYLOR. 

elect rode in a carriage drawn by four gray horses, 
accompanied by Mr. Polk. One hundred young 
gentlemen, the elite of the District of Columbia, 
formed a body-guard to keep off the crowd. He 
was preceded by twelve volunteer companies, and 
followed by various clubs and the students of the 
Jesuit College. 

The inaugural was nearly inaudible, but it was 
rather alarming to the hotspurs of the South. Re- 
ferring to the dangers which threatened the Union, 
he raised his voice and emphatically said : "What- 
ever dangers may threaten it, I shall stand by it, 
and maintain it in its integrity, to the full extent of 
the obligations imposed and the power conferred upon 
me by the Constitution." 

The shy bride, Mrs. Bliss, made her debt'Lt into 
Washington society at the three inaugural balls ; 
dressed in simple white, with a rose in her dark hair, 
she took all hearts by storm ; it was said that she 
had the " artlessness of a rustic belle and the grace 
of a duchess." Her married name seemiCd for- 
gotten, she was only the daughter of Zachary 
Taylor, a part and parcel of the nation — sweet 
Miss Betty — "One of the Graces," said Miss Fred- 
erika Bremer, who was present. 

The second attraction was the Russian Count de 
Bodisco, with his beautiful American wife. The 
count was resplendent in the uniform of an imperial 



n 



MRS. TAYLOR. 25/ 

chamberlain, with the insignia of a number of 
orders of knight.:iood. The countess wore the dress, 
in which she had been presented to the Czar, the 
year before. It was of white satin, embroidered 
with gold, and over it she wore a crimson velvet 
polonaise, with a sweeping train, also embroidered 
with gold, while her crimson velvet head dress was 
resplendent with diamonds. 

It was a dazzling scene to the President, and he 
honestly said: "I have been so long among Indians 
and Mexicans, that I hardly know how to behave 
myself, surrounded by so many lovely women." 

Party politics ran high, even the opening session 
had been inauspicious ; for three weeks there had 
beepx a wrangle in the House over the speakership, 
and slavery had been the question upon which it had 
all hinged. 

California had donned seven-league boots and was 
a-clanging and a-whanging away at the gates of the 
Union, imperiously asking to be a star, and she 
wouldn't be a star if a son of Ham walked in bond- 
age upon her soil. 

She had made a constitution that pleased her, and 
she would have none other. 

The President favored her admission, uncondition- 
ally, without any of Henry Clay's concessions to 
make it palatable to the South. He was a slave- 
holder and his sympathies were with his class. He 



258 MRS. TAYLOR. 

wrote his son-in-law, Jefferson Davis, that if any 
attempt were made to deprive the Slave States of 
their constitutional rights, he was willing that South- 
erners should ''act promptly, boldly, and decisively, 
with arms in their hands if necessary, as the Union 
in that case will be blown to atoms, or will be no 
longer worth preserving." 

The honesty of the " ignorant frontier colonel " 
seemed better than wisdom ; he was just as firm to 
maintain the rights of the F'ree States, and when the 
South made her usual threat, with something of the 
Jackson ring and tone, he said : *' Disunion is 
treason ; " and if Southerners attempted to carry it 
out, " they should be dealt with by law as they 
deserved, and executed." 

When Texas claimed the control of New Mexico, 
and with threats demanded the withdrawal of United 
States troops, the President's order to the military 
commandant was, *' repel force by force," and he 
promised, if need were, he would be there himself. 

The South was alarmed. Her sons had schemed 
and worked to bring about a war with Mexico, had 
fought and bled that the territory wrenched from 
her might enlarge their own borders — now it was 
eluding them and was only to increase the Free 
States and add to their power. They denounced the 
President as a traitor to the South. 

Burning words and fiery eloquence burst from the 



MRS. TAYLOR. 259 

lips of the giants. Calhoun attacked Benton, and he 
was not slow in hitting back. Such was the din, 
that honest Zachary Taylor said it was far more 
trying to his nerves than tracking savages or fight- 
ing Mexicans ; nothing decisive came of it, however ; 
the government didn't fall to pieces, though at times 
it seemed as if it must. 

The first year of the administration wore slowly 
away. The bitter political contest had rather inter- 
fered with social enjoyments. On the fourth of 
March, Miss Betty held a grand reception in honor 
of the inauguration. 

She had become a social power, and it was said 
that in manner, grace, ease, and conversation she 
could vie with any "to the manner born." 

" Rough-and-Ready " would wear clothes much too 
large for him (to be comfortable, he said), but he had 
acquired some courtly and dignified airs; yet there 
was a harassed and tired look on his face ; sleepless 
nights were his portion. Never were truer words 
written than, — 

" Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." 

The Fourth of July was chosen for laying the 
corner-stone of the Washington monument. The day 
was the warmest of that warm season. The Presi- 
dent rode in the procession in an open barouche, sat 
upon the stand during the oration, speeches, and for- 



26o MRS. TAYLOR. 

malities of the occasion. He once remarked that he 
never felt such heat in Florida or in Mexico. 

In his active, outdoor life, there had been little 
need of prudence in eating and drinking, but in the 
changed life and weakened system, a cup of cold 
water could work bitter results. In less than an 
hour paroxysms of pain began. From the first he 
foresaw the end. 

There was a touching pathos in his words : " I 
should not be surprised if this were to end in death. 
I did not expect to meet what has beset me since my 
elevation to the presidency. God knows I have tried 
to fulfil what I thought to be my honest duty ; but I 
have been misjudged, my motives have been miscon- 
strued, and my feelings grossly betrayed." 

His illness brought dismay to the hearts of the 
people ; the story of Tippecanoe was to be repeated, 
— killed by the politicians. 

It was Webster who, almost overcome with emo- 
tion, in low, thrilling tones, announced to the Senate 
that "a great misfortune threatened the land." The 
great man had been wroth at Taylor's nomination ; 
but for months he had been in close contact with the 
'* frontier colonel," and realized that only a great man 
could be so modest, so pure, so sincere, so brave, so 
true to his principles, so spotless in his integrity ; 
if not a politician, a statesman, he was something 
higher, nobler. 



I 



MRS. TAYLOR. 26l 

The great man had been received and welcomed 
as a friend in the home circle, had learned to honor 
the patient, faithful wife, whose manners and life 
showed the gentlewoman and the Christian. 

There was something piquant about Miss Betty ; 
she would frankly look into his eyes, and talk with 
the social abandon of a cultured woman ; mingled 
with it all there was an honest sincerity, often some- 
thing unexpectedly wise, something beyond her years, 
which charmed, — made her unlike other society 
women. 

Five days and nights drew out their weary length, 
and the end came. It seemed as if Mrs. Taylor had 
had the gift of prophecy when the subject of the 
presidency was first spoken of in the Spanish cot- 
tage, and in bitterness had said : " It is a plot to take 
him from me." Kneeling in agony at his bedside, 
she saw it coming true, — at times she would lie in- 
sensible. 

Clasping her hand and looking into her eyes, he 
said, " I am not afraid to die. I have tried to do my 
duty." He never spoke again. The woman, who 
had never flinched at parting, when he had gone to 
the battlefield, who had instilled bravery and Chris- 
tian resignation into so many stricken hearts, gave 
way to hysterical grief, — shriek followed shriek, and 
Miss Betty's case was almost as pitiable. 

His eulogist likened him to the noble old Romans, 



262 MRS. TAYLOR. 

who put their stamp upon the eternal city, and made 
her what she was in the days of her pahny grandeur. 
His former military superior, General Scott, said he 
left behind him not an enemy in the world. Politi- 
cians had broken but had never bent him. 

His death was announced in the Ca,pitol by the 
tolling of the bell of the Department of State, and 
the peal was echoed from every church steeple in 
the city. The remains lay in state in the East Room 
of the Executive Mansion. General Scott, in a rich 
uniform, with yellow plumes waving from his high 
chapeau, and mounted on a spirited horse, com- 
manded the large military force which escorted the 
cortege to the Congressional burial-ground. A high 
canopy of black silk, with a gilt eagle draped with 
crape, towered above the funeral car, which was 
drawn by eight white horses, each led by a negro 
f^room dressed in a white Oriental costume. " Old 
Whitey," who had carried General Taylor through 
the Mexican War, was led directly behind the funeral 
car, having the boots of the dead soldier in the stir- 
rups, and formed the most touching feature of the 
procession. 

Not a day would Mrs. Taylor linger after the pom- 
pous funeral was over, nor would she ever speak of 
Washington or her home in the White House. 

She had no heart or desire to go back to the Span- 
ish cottage, which had been the only house that in 



MRS. TAYLOR. 263 

her married life she had called home. The friends of 
her youth lived in Kentucky, and to them Colonel 
Bliss and Miss Betty took her. Her grief was too 
fresh to bear their loving sympathy, and she soon 
went to her son, whose home was in Pascagoula, 
Louisiana. 

Time always softens grief, and might hers, but two 
years were not enough for one so stricken, and at the 
end of that period she, too, passed away. 

Mrs. Bliss, whose home was in Winchester, Vir- 
ginia, soon became a widow. She has since formed 
a second marriage, and still lives there. 

She was the second bride of the Executive Man- 
sion and among its fair mistresses, crowned with the 
halo of youth, the daughter of the old soldier will 
ever hold an honored place, albeit she queened it but 
a season. 

Richard, the son of General Taylor, joined the 
Confederates, and took a leading part in the Civil 
War. 






MRS. FILLMORE. 

Miss Abigail Powers was the youngest daughter 
of a Baptist clergyman, who died when she was an 
infant. The wife and mother was left penniless, and 
for years there was a weary struggle with poverty. 
Later, she went, for economy's sake, with her broth- 
ers to the western part of New York, into what was 
then a frontier county. 

The little daughter, now ten years old, was remark- 
ably precocious and ambitious, and the mother did 
what she could to foster her love of learning. There 
was a private school, or rather an academy in the 
neighborhood, but the family income was too small 
for the girl to avail herself of it. 

The time came, when though a mere child. Miss 
Abigail was thought competent to teach the summer 
village school. With the money she earned she was 
able to gratify her eager longing to go to the academy 
in winter. She made such wonderful progress, that 
she was soon fitted for a higher position, and able to 
assist in the support of the family. When she was 
twenty-one, her mother married a second time, and 
she made her home in the family of a dearly beloved 
friend. Here she met a young man, more than two 

264 



MRS. FILLMORE. 265 

years her junior; his youth, too, had been spent in 
poverty, and like Miss Abigail, he was a great reader 
and craved an education. 

At fourteen, he had been bound out by his father 
to learn the trade of a clothier and fuller, but every 
spare moment was given to books and study. At 
nineteen, the date of his acquaintance with Miss 
Powers, he made a fine, manly appearance, was dig- 
nified and gentlemanly beyond his years. 

Miss Powers, whose two years seniority made her 
feel as if she could be his mentor, loaned him books 
and rather directed his studies. 

She was a perfect blonde, her skin of dazzling 
fairness, and luxuriant auburn hair fell about her face 
in curls ; her person was above middle height, and 
her presence very commanding. 

The boy at first revered and then loved the supe- 
rior woman, who took such an interest in his studies 
and his aspirations. We cannot tell how the wooing 
began or went on, but the end is a matter of history. 

There was a lawyer in the town, who had noticed 
the studious, hard-working boy, and thought he gave 
promise of greatness ; as his means were ample and 
his heart large, he loaned him money on easy terms 
to buy his time of his master, and took him into his 
office to study law. The boy was grateful, but the 
debt sat heavily upon him ; he was too manly to be a 
tax on any one. In the winter months he taught 



266 MRS. FILLMORE. 

school, did copying to help himself along, and studied 
nights. His progress was 'such, that in two years, 
his benefactor advised him to go to Buffalo for greater 
advantages. He walked there with only four dollars 
in his pocket. Two more years were spent teaching 
by day and studying by night. 

A red-letter day came in his history when he was 
twenty-three. Though in some way short of the 
usual requirements, by special favor he was admitted 
to the bar. 

For three years he had the uphill work which a 
young lawyer usually has to face — work which, 
through poverty, was never lightened by the sight 
of the woman he loved, though only parted by one 
hundred and fifty miles ; an ardent lover would have 
walked it. Abigail Powers and Millard Fillmore were 
true to each other, but had no romance in their com- 
positions, — all their virtues were solid ; were what 
are called level-headed. Pity, perhaps, there are not 
more like them, even if they do seem prosy and un- 
interesting. 

Used to poverty and drudgery all their lives, they 
joined their fortunes, hardly hoping for anything mere 
than an honest living, certainly never dreaming of 
fame. 

When clients were scarce, Millard with his own 
hands worked upon a small frame house : when it 
was done, Abigail did the housework, in addition 



MRS. FILLMORE. 26/ 

to the school duties, which she had never re- 
signed. 

She had helped her husband up, and her intellec- 
tual strength was, even now, his chief stimulus. 

Without a particle of brilliancy, his integrity and 
untiring industry perhaps stood him in better stead 
and carried him on to fame. A Buffalo lawyer, 
crowded with clients, offered him a partnership. 
Thither he took his wife, and there a son and a 
daughter were born to them. Increasing prosperity, 
freedom from debt, and the polished, cultivated so- 
ciety, to which she had been unused, made life very 
charming to Mrs. Fillmore. 

Mr. Fillmore was chosen a member of the State 
Legislature. His pontics were rather lukewarm, but 
he cast his vote with the Whigs. What little of the 
lion there was in him was roused by the bill for abol- 
ishing imprisonment for debt. He brought all his 
legal acumen to bear upon it, and spoke with a gleam 
of eloquence. 

After serving the State for three years, he was 
elected to Congress. He made his dcbilt in the year, 
that South Carolina declared the tariff null and void, 
and advised by her great leader, threatened to leave 
the Union. Jackson, foaming at the mouth, was 
storming about like a roaring lion, vowing he would 
hang every senator from the State (always sorry that 
he didn't). Webster was battling secession, on the 



268 MRS. FILLMORE. 

floor of the Senate, with Hayne. The Kentucky 
giant was putting aside his chances for the presi- 
dency, which no man ever coveted more, nobly say- 
ing, " I would rather be right than be President," 
and manufacturing his wonderful cement to pour 
upon the cracks in the Union, which brought order 
out of confusion and quiet out of din. Fillmore's 
strong, good sense taught him that it would be un- 
becoming for a new and a lesser light to open his 
mouth, and with wonder he watched the course of 
affairs, and in silence gave his vote. 

General Taylor's military record had tossed him 
on the highest wave of popularity, and the politicians 
thought that the tide would sweep him into the 
seat of the chief magistrate. He knew nothing of 
statesmanship, had had no interest in politics, had 
not even voted for forty years, held slaves, which 
raised such a din among the Abolitionists that it 
split the party — was only a soldier whose prowess 
had added lustre to our arms, had enlarged our ter- 
ritory, and opened to us a mine of wealth, and was 
an honest man; not that this latter quality was 
a recommendation, but rather a stumbling-block 
to the politicians ; however, they were adepts in 
the potter's craft, and thought his simplicity and 
ignorance would combine to make the most malle- 
able of clay. Well, they counted without their host. 

With this peculiar candidate, it was thought wise 



MRS. FILLMORE. 269 

to have in the second place a man who had heard of 
Coke and Littleton, and it was also wise to please 
the Empire State, by choosing one of her sons. 
They were a little more wary in their selection than 
when they tacked Tyler to Tippecanoe. The solid 
qualities of FiUmore had no magnetic power, bat 
were a good makeweight to the popular nominee, 
so the Whig banners were flung to the breeze, em- 
blazoned with the names of Taylor and Fillmore. 

The "Little Magician" had lost his cunning, and 
couldn't pull the wires into shape for the Free 
Soilers; Cass, the Southern nominee, was nowhere. 
The Whig ticket triumphed. 

It did seem as if Pandora's box had been opened 
and that, for the first time, even Hope had escaped. 

Mr. Fillmore succeeded Calhoun as President of 
the Senate. If he had not Calhoun's brains, he was 
younger, had a splendid presence, and then he had 
a finer sense of the dignity of the place. Calhoun had 
claimed that when the senators lost their tempers 
and vented their wrath upon each other in abusive 
language, the chair had no right to interfere, but 
Fillmore claimed that he had that right and would 
use it, if he had to reverse the whole order of things. 
In cool blood, the senators felt that he was right, and 
they approved and endorsed him. 

In sixteen months the politicans had paved the 
way for the second to become the first. 



2/0 MRS. FILLMORE. 

Mrs. Fillmore, like Mrs. Taylor, shrank from the 
social duties of her position ; was reserved in her 
intercourse with strangers. She would preside at a 
state dinner, but like Mrs. Taylor, she had a daughter 
whom she too, pressed to the front. 

Miss Mary Abigail Fillmore had been even a more 
precocious child than her mother, — had all the practi- 
cal, solid qualities of both her parents. Born in Buf- 
falo, after her father's prosperity and public life began, 
she had every advantage ; was subjected in child- 
hood to the excellent drill of the public schools ; 
later, private tutors were employed for the higher 
branches, music, drawing, and the languages. To 
finish her off, she was sent to Mrs. Sedgwick's famous 
boarding-school at Lenox, was a classmate and friend 
of Miss Harriet Hosmer, and at that time showed as 
much taste and talent for sculpture as Miss Hosmer 
herself. There was no frivolity about her ; when 
only seventeen, she had mature views on the subject 
of self-reliance, independence, and woman's ability to 
earn her own living. That she might earn hers she 
proposed to fit herself to be a teacher, and that she 
might teach according to rule, she would go to the 
State Normal School. They would only admit her 
upon the pledge that she would use her knowledge 
for a stated period in the service of the State. 
Though her father was vice-president of the United 
States, she served her time, and, to fulfil her con- 



1 



MRS. FILLMORE. 2/1 

tract, took a position in one of the public schools of 
Buffalo. 

When General Taylor died, the State waived its 
right to the services of a daughter of the President 
of the United States, and she joined her mother at 
Washin2:ton. At the time, Mrs. Fillmore was in 
mourning for her sister, when that was over she 
sprained her ankle, and as she had no inclination or 
qualification to be a society leader she leaned upon 
her self-reliant daughter. The girl of eighteen 
seemed older than Miss Betty, who was. five years 
her senior. She could speak French with the accent 
of a native Parisian, had marvellous skill upon the 
piano and harp, and private musical soirees were 
among the chief pleasures of the family. 

With the exception of the wives of the two 
Adamses there had been no literary or learned 
women in the White House. The first had lived in 
the day of small things and had found it difficult to 
get wood to heat, or candles to light the nation's 
mansion, — would as soon have thought of asking for 
the moon as for a library. 

The second Mrs. Adams had brought and taken 
away what was needed for her mental refreshment. 
When the Fillmores came, there was a Bible, and 
almost literally nothing more. Mrs. Fillmore and 
Miss Mary Abigail had been used to maps, encylo- 
paedias, dictionaries, everything that makes a well- 



2/2 MRS. FILLMORE. 

Stocked library, and of turning to them every hour of 
the day. The place seemed like an arid desert. To 
remedy this, the President asked an appropriation of 
Congress, which was granted. 

The ladies selected the books and placed them in 
the oval room upstairs, with Miss Mary's harp and 
piano. One room, at least, was like home. Once a 
week there was a morning reception, an evening 
levee, a state dinner, and sometimes two ; if more 
were' done, it was in the form of little private musical 
parties for their own pleasure ; these, Mrs. Fillmore 
enjoyed. 

The political contest waxed fiercer and fiercer ; 
Calhoun had died, but South Carolina was as high 
and mighty without him as with him. The rampant 
Abolitionists of the North were enough to try the 
temper of all the saints in the calendar (the South- 
erners were no saints) ; they didn't inherit slaves, 
didn't own slaves, so they stood throwing stones at 
those who did. 

What still more exasperated the South was that 
George Thompson, termed an English philanthropist, 
finding no zvrongs to redress at home, had come to 
America and was welcomed by the Yankees, and his 
object was to overthrow the peculiar institution of 
the South, where he was dubbed as the "foreign 
hireling." 

Patriots and statesmen were at their wits' end. 



MRS. FILLMORE. 2/3 

Again Clay came to the front with his wonderful 
cement and tided us over ; coiled bands about the 
Union, that held it through another decade, but the 
process almost rent the land in twain ; each measure 
had to be haggled over, and each settled separately. 
Clay counted them off upon the fingers of his left 
hand as the five bleeding wounds of the nation, 
Benton sarcastically saying, that there would be more 
bleeding wounds if Clay had had more fingers ; the 
great Pacificator was almost at his last gasp, yet 
never so grand as when he fought through the 
" Omnibus Bill " to save the Union, which proved 
after all only a temporary truce. 

California's star floated in the blue, free, as her 
people vowed from the first that it should. 

To appease the South for the loss of something 
which she claimed as her rio'ht, the Fusfitive Slave 
Law was passed. The Abolitionists and a good many 
beside, just howled. Fillmore was cold-blooded and 
cold-hearted — had no sentiment with which to con- 
tend, yet he had no special liking for the business of 
returning runaway slaves to their masters, but that it 
should be done by United States troops, if need were, 
was a law of the land, and he had sworn to execute 
the laws, and execute them he would and he did. 

One display of his power was made in Boston. A 
"man hunter" as he was called, had come to the 
North and a fucfitive slave named Shadrach had been 



274 MRS. FILLMORE. 

caught and while under examination in the court- 
room had been forcibly taken, by a crowd of his own 
race, from the hands of the deputy marshal of the 
United States. Had every white man in Massachu- 
setts taken arms and marched upon the South there 
could not have been more excitement nor indigna- 
tion. The President called upon the civil and military 
power — upon all good citizens of the Free States — 
to assist in enforcing the law, and asked of Congress 
more extensive power in calling out the militia. 

It did seem as if the South might have kept quiet, 
while the President of the United States, with an 
army at his back, was battling for their rights, making 
sure that they should have justice, if it were justice, 
meted out to them. 

Toombs, in triumph said, the day would come 
when he would call the roll of his slaves from Bunker 
Hill Monument. The Abolitionists, roused to fury, 
nerved by thinking that they were doing God's service, 
declared that there was a higher law than that made 
in Washington, so, as far as they dared, they evaded, 
contravened it, made " underground railways," beck- 
oned slaves on and hustled them through. Many of 
.these law-breakers were of the stock from which the 
martyrs were made and would have died for their 
principles a martyr's death. The siege lasted as 
long as that of old Troy — then " Liberty and Union " 
were (but not forever), two and separable. 



MRS. FILLMORE. 2/5 

After the hearty meal off of Mexican spoils, which 
to be sure had been but ashes in their mouths, the 
South thought Cuba would be but a bon-bon, and 
she would like the merit of taking it. Fillmore 
afterwards avowed that he thought it to be the 
" manifest destiny of our government to embrace the 
whole of the North American Continent," but so 
long as he represented the majesty of the United 
States, he was as strong against stealing Cuba, as he 
had been in the rendition of slaves. 

Somehow, through the connivance of the collector 
of New Orleans, an armed force got away, led by 
Lopez, a Venezuelan. Had he been a native of the 
United States and succeeded, he would probably 
have ridden in a triumphal chariot right into the 
Executive Mansion. As it was, he was garroted, 
and nobody pitied him. Those who were not gar- 
roted were taken to Spain and tasted the quality of 
Spanish prisons. When Spanish wrath cooled, they 
were released, and the United States government 
paid their passage home. 

The great Hungarian, Kossuth, came to America 
in Fillmore's reign, and pleaded the cause of his coun- 
try. The President gave him a welcome and a piece 
of his heart, but was as true as steel to his oath. 
The patriot won the people's sympathies, and when 
he issued dollar-bonds which he pledged himself to 
redeem when Hungary was free, thousands took 



276 MRS. FILLMORE. 

them, hardly looking for their redemption, but rather 
as souvenirs of the illustrious sfuest. 

Calhoun, Clay, and Webster had died since the 
election of Taylor and Fillmore, and the nation 
mourned as if its greatness had passed away. 

Mr. Fillmore had the honor of sending Perry on 
the famous expedition to Japan, opening the ports of 
that mysterious land for the first time. 

Since, the Mikado, whose face could not then be 
looked upon by his own nobles, has shaken hands 
with ^an ex-President of the United States. Verily, 
times are not as they were. 

It is customary for a retiring President to leave 
the Executive Mansion before his successor comes, 
but Mrs. Fillmore, with rare delicacy and a woman's 
sympathy, remained to give a welcome and smooth 
the way for her heart-broken successor, Mrs. Pierce. 

The Fillmores went to Willard's Hotel, intending 
to go on a tour through the Southern states before 
returning to Buffalo, but Mrs. Fillmore fell ill, and 
died before the month closed. 

For a year Miss Mary presided over her father's 
house. At the home of her grandmother, where she 
had gone for a short visit, she died of cholera, so 
suddenly, -that all was over before her father and 
brother could reach her, though they were but 
twenty miles away. 

The presidency seems shorn of its honors, when it 



MRS. FILLMORE. 2// 

comes from the death of the chosen man, and Mr. 
Fillmore had a strong ambition for the real thing. 
Twice he was nominated, but signally failed. To 
secure a second term, it was said that he used the 
patronage of the Federal government, but there 
seemed to be no magnetism in the man. Few 
doubted the purity or the sincerity of his inten- 
tions in performing the duties of his administration. 
He left, with the country at peace and prosperous, 
yet, history rather stamps his term as inglorious, if 
not a failure, and the ladies were no social success. 
The carriage and horses presented by friends were 
sold and converted into a silver service. 

He was enthusiastically received in a tour through 
the Southern states, on account of his action in the 
rendition of slaves ; and in the presidential campaign 
that section had given him 'her entire strength: 

Two years later he travelled in Europe, — was at 
Rome, when" his name was placed at the head of the 
Know-Nothing ticket. 

In 1858, he married Mrs. Caroline Mcintosh, of 
Albany, a lady of culture and great wealth. 

He took no very decided stand in the Civil War, 
— was rather classed among the Copperheads. 

He died in March, 1874, in his seventy ^fifth year. 



MRS. PIERCE. 

Miss Jane A pleton was the daughter of the 
Rev. Jesse Appleton, D.D., President of Bowdoin 
College. She was reared in a home of perfect re- 
finement, and in no town of New England is there 
more cultured society than in Brunswick, or greater 
advantages for education. 

She was born physically delicate, and her mental 
structure was of the finest sort. As one reads what 
little is known of her, it seems as if she were too 
fine for the roughness of this world ; was better fitted 
for the days when Eve innocently roamed the Garden 
of Eden — before the serpent had asked her to eat an 
apple. If she had faults and frailties, they have not 
come down in history ; she is always spoken of as 
one altogether lovely — one to be loved at home ; yet, 
she made no special impress upon society, and was 
too sensitive and shrinking for her own happiness. 

If one inquire about her in Concord, where she 
spent most of her married life, they can only tell you 
that she had the name of being a very refined, quiet 
woman, rather shunning society ; one says that she 
had rare beauty and many accomplishments. What- 
ever she was, she won the love of one of the most 

278 



I 



MRS. PIERCE. 279 

fascinating of men, and his devotion and tenderness 
never wavered. 

Franklin Pierce Wcls the son of a prominent New 
Hampshire man, one who served his state in many 
important offices, rising even to the highest. The 
boy was the sixth of a large family of children. He 
was a bright, handsome lad, a favorite of every one 
with whom he came in contact ; one who had a per- 
fect physical and mental development, — not preco- 
cious, but a good scholar. At sixteen, he entered 
Bowdoin ; was a classmate and friend of Nathaniel 
Hawthorne, who wrote his life, and recorded that 
his most notable characteristic was a "fascination 
of manner, which has proved so magical in winning 
him unbounded popularity." 

It was at Brunswick, while in college, that he met 
and loved Miss Appleton. 

Upon graduating, he began the study of law at 
Portsmouth, in the office of Judge Woodbury, one of 
the finest lawyers of New Hampshire. He inherited 
Democracy from his father, and dashed into politics 
before he could vote. He would hurrah for Jackson 
with the loudest, yet was as strong on States Rights 
as Calhoun himself. 

He settled in his native town, Hillsborough, and 
gave no promise of leg .1 ability. His first appear- 
ance as a pleader was a failure, but it only incited 
him to redoubled perseverance and determination. 



28o MRS. PIERCE. 

That he became a successful lawyer was due to his 
identifying himself with his clients, and a strong, 
magnetic influence with the jury. 

He was chosen State Representative, and soon 
Speaker of the House. He was as popular as a rhan 
as he had been as a boy. The state elected him to 
the lower house in Congress. He was hand in glove 
with Jackson, and became an especial favorite with 
him. In 1834, he made Miss Appleton his wife. 

Five years later, during the presidency of Van 
Buren, *he was elected to the Senate, being the 
youngest member of that body. He was a ready, 
graceful speaker, but in that august company, made 
up of giants, he rarely spoke, but when he did, he 
won attention. 

In 1838, he removed to Concord, and practised his 
profession with great success. When Mr. Polk 
came into power, he offered him the office of 
Attorney-General ; but business, his wife's health, 
and her dislike to Washington life, led him to de- 
cline the honor. He was also about the same time 
offered the democratic nomination for' governor; this 
too he declined, determined to attend to Jiis profes- 
sion and secure a competency for the coming years ; 
politics were far from being profitable. 

He had been the father of three sons, but two 
died in infancy. Mrs. Pierce was prone to melan- 
choly. She could always see a mirage, made up of 



4< 



MRS. PIERCE. 281 

bridges ; no powers of persuasion could turn her 
feet ; she must cross them all, and you may be 
sure that she never boiled the peas with which 
she filled her shoes. That this gay, social, hail- 
fellow-well-met Frank Pierce was a volume of 
tenderness to this quiet, low-spirited woman, 
is a proof of the saying, that people like their 
opposites. 

Unseen forces were building a bridge which never 
had shape in her mirage, but which she must cross, 
whether she will or no. But then, there is little 
difference between a real or an imaginary bridge, 
indeed, people often seem braver in crossing tangible 
ones; they can set their feet down solid, which gives 
them a sense of security. Quiet, country-home life, 
with the husband and son whom she adored seemed 
to stretch out before her. The very word politics 
grated on her over-attuned ears, and to her husband 
it was the most fascinating, all-engrossing subject in 
the world, especially now that the sectional strife 
was waxino" hotter and hotter. Pie went all len^rths 

O O 

in his democracy, was more of a slavery man than 
the slaveholders themselves. Northern Democrats 
deplored slavery, but failed to see how it could be 
gotten rid of, and were in sympathy with those who 
were born to the curse of it ; he talked as if it were 
no blot on our escutcheon, but the talk was never in 
the presence of his sensitive wife. If guests came. 



282 MRS. PIERCE 

he curbed his tongue and managed to curb theirs, 
until they were in his private quarters. 

Mr. Polk and his supporters were the architects of 
the new, solidly-built bridge, o'erlaid with pointed 
pebbles, over which so many bleeding hearts, if not 
bleeding feet, were to pass. 

At the very first hint of picking a quarrel with 
Mexico and enlarging Southern States for the benefit 
of their peculiar institution, Frank Pierce sprang to 
his feet. He could love like a woman, and act like a 
man ; Could kiss away the tears of his half-ethereal 
wife, unclasp her clinging arms, put her, fainting, 
from him and march forth to do what he thought 
to be duty ; mistaken duty, most New Englanders 
thought. 

He enlisted as a simple volunteer soldier, showing 
the sincerity of his motives. He was too much of a 
man to be left in the ranks, was soon made colonel, 
and then raised to the rank of brigadier-general. 
He distinguished himself for his bravery — always 
distinguished himself in whatever he had to do. 

His brigade of twenty-fonr hundred men, was to 
reenforce General Scott. He rode under the burn- 
ing summer sun, always gay, the idol of his men ; 
there seemed to be a sort of magnetism about the 
man, which drew all hearts toward him. 

No dangers or difficulties daunted him. Once, 
when his little araiy was on the heels of the Mexi- 



MRS. PIERCE. 283 

cans, they came to a bridge, a magnificient structure, 
built by the old Spaniards ; to their dismay, they 
found the centre arch blown away. All but the 
general were despondent ; there must be some way 
out of it, he was sure. He summoned to his aid a 
Maine lumberman, skilled in all sorts of mechanical 
contrivances, who assured him that in four hours 
time, he could make a road over which the artillery 
and wagons could pass, provided he had men enough. 
Five hundred, his number, were detailed and before 
night the passage was made. 

How little the Mexicans knew of the versatility of 
talent among Yankees, when they sacrificed their 
splendid bridge ! 

The march to General Scott's headquarters began 
the 28th of June and ended the 7th of August. 

Once, Pierce was thrown by the stumbling of his 
horse, badly sprained his knee, and besides was 
severely bruised. As soon as he had recovered full 
consciousness, and his knee had been bound up by 
the surgeon, he insisted, contrary to all advice, that 
he must be mounted and follow his men. 

"But, general, you cannot keep your seat," said 
the surgeon. *'Then tie me on," was the undaunted 
reply. In the agony of a fresh sprain, away he rode 
like the wind ; he must and would be at the front, 
where the bullets were thickest. His nerve and will 
carried him throufrh. 



284 MRS. PIERCE. 

At midnight in a drenching, tropical rain, upon an 
ammunition wagon, he took his first rest. Pain 
overcame weariness ; sleep shortened none of the 
minutes of the miserable night. 

General Scott sent orders for an immediate ad- 
vance, and long before sunrise the dau»ntless man 
was again in the saddle. An assault was successful 
in seventeen minutes, but the pursuit lasted until 
past noon, and General Pierce led the advance. 

General Scott wished to give him personal orders 
to attack Santa Anna in the rear. The appearance 
of the man made him alter his mind, but General 
Pierce begged it as a boon, that he might be the one 
to go. '*Why man, you can't touch your foot to the 
stirrup," said Scott. " One I can," was the answer. 
The flashing of the eyes told what the man could 
dare and do, and as the best cannot be spared in 
war, he was allowed to go. 

Over ditches and chasms he leaped his horse, until 
one opened too wide for the attempt ; upon hands 
and knees he crossed it. Mind and matter had 
struggled ; but at last, nature conquered, he sank 
helpless upon the field. His men would have borne 
him away, but the heroic spirit was not conquered ; 
he would lie where he could watch the progress of 
the battle. 

When the shouts of victory came from his troops, 
he was placed upon a horse and rode to meet Santa 



MRS. PIERCE. 285 

Anna, who had asked for a conference, which lasted 
until four in the morning. 

General Pierce took part in one more conflict ; but 
at the final one, when the city of Mexico fell into our 
hands, he was so ill that he was confined to his bed. 

Nine months from the time that he sailed away, 
he was in his home at Concord, folding wife and boy 
in his arms. 

Mrs. Pierce had not died, as she said that she 
should. She had given way to tremors when the 
Mexican mail came in, had had many funerals, and 
had taken many walks to the churchyard behind her 
husband's body, but they had not told upon her 
health nor very seriously impaired her spirits. Had 
he been at home, she would have passed sleepless 
nights, lest he should drink an extra glass of wine, 
and if truth must be told, he sometimes did, for he 
was a convivial man, liked a social drink, though no 
low lover of liquor. 

Then he settled down again to his profession ; he 
had manfully done his share in public duties, and he 
gloried in the result. 

Man proposes for himself, but if one enter the 
arena, which he did, politicians dispose. 

In 1852, the Democrats met at Baltimore to settle 
upon the name to be put upon their presidential 
ticket. It was supposed that the choice would rest 
upon one of four, prominent men; Buchanan, Macy, 



2C6 - MRS. PIERCE. 

Cass, or Douglas. The balloting oegan, and went 
on for three days until it reached the thirty-fifth 
ballot, and they seemed no nearer a choice than 
when they began. Delegates from Virginia whis- 
pered together, and then for the second time in our 
history a "dark horse" was led out. At first, there 
seemed to be no one to drive him to the front. 
Another day the balloting went slowly on ; each 
time he made a step forward, and at the forty-ninth 
ballot, Franklin Pierce, the " Northern man with 
Southern principles," was the Democratic nominee 
for the presidency of the United States. 

Americans, Europeans, and the man himself were 
astonished. In some sections, a question similar to 
the one in Polk's day was asked, *' Who is Frank 
Pierce.?" 

A stranger in New Hampshire asked of his land- 
lord, at a village inn : " What sort of a man is 
General Pierce.?" ''Wall, up here, where every- 
body knows Frank Pierce, and where Frank Pierce 
knows everybody, he's a pretty considerable fellow, 
I tell you. But come to spread him out over this 
whole country, I'm afraid that he'll be dreadful thin 
in some places." 

■ General Scott, who had fought in Mexico because 
he was ordered to do so ; General Pierce, the dash- 
ing volunteer, and John P. Hale were opposing can- 
didates. 



MRS. PIERCE. 287 

New England was proud of her gallant son, and 
with the exception of Massachusetts and Vermont, 
gave him her electoral votes. He was elected by a 
large majority. 

Mrs. Pierce was keenly alive to the honor con- 
ferred upon her husband, and the prestige it would 
bestow upon her son. Inwardly shrinking for her- 
self, she could smile and even beam upon the con- 
gratulations pouring in from every quarter. 

To be sure, she still crossed bridges, but they 
seemed farther apart, and the peas by constant use 
were a little flattened. 

The house was gay with visitors, and if the presi- 
dent-elect with his family went from home, people 
vied with one another to do them honor. 

In the midst of their triumph a blow was to be 
dealt to them, from which neither could ever recover 
to their life's end, something more horrible than Mrs. 
Pierce's darkest forebodings had ever fashioned. 

In January, the general, Mrs. Pierce, and their 
son, a bold, handsome lad of thirteen years, visited 
Boston, to be feted by their friends and make pur- 
chases for the Washington life. On their return, 
between Lawrence and Andover, the passengers felt 
a vibrating motion ; it is said, that one never mis- 
takes its meaning, even though it may be a first expe- 
rience. An axle had broken, and in a moment the 
cars were turnino; over down an embankment. Gen- 



288 MRS. PIERCE. 

eral Pierce was bruised and sadly shaken up, but the 
thought of his loved ones cleared his brains. He 
took his wife in his arms and placed her on the 
ground, then staggered back for his boy. It seemed 
as if God had no pity ! There lay his only son, his 
head crushed, his brains in his cap. Even then, the,' 
man thought more of what it would be to the mother, 
than of his own grief. None should tell her but 
himself, with his arms tightly clasped around her. 

Not another passenger was seriously injured. 
Every heart in the nation thrilled with sympathy for 
the bereaved parents. 

The Concord home was a quiet closed house now. 
As the Fourth of March approached, Mrs. Pierce 
nerved herself for her duties, determined to hide her 
private sorrow, even if it ate out her heart. If a 
reception or a levee were to be held or a dinner-party 
given, she was usually at her place, and her quiet, 
refined courtesy never failed. Having never risen to 
the level of cheerfulness, it could not be expected 
that now, saddened by the loss of her darling, she 
would take any social stand. 

Out of the mirage loomed another bridge, and 
over it and over it she walked ; it seemed harder and 
more pebbly than any before, inasmuch as it was con- 
nected with disgrace. In the seclusion of country 
life, her husband had more than once shown himself 
intoxicated. If the President of the United States 




MRS. PIERCE. 289 

should SO far forget himself, it would be bruited from 
north to south, from east to west, copied into foreign 
papers. With closed eyes, she could see the flaming 
capitals with which the disgraceful fact would be 
headed. Her purity and innate delicacy shrank 
fi'om it, as her flesh would from burning coals. Her 
fears were groundless. Frank Pierce was a perfect 
gentleman, knew what belonged to his high station, 
and would sooner have been drawn in quarters by 
wild horses than have disgraced it. 

He was said to have been more popular at Wash- 
ington than any other occupant of the White House. 
Generous to a fault, his hospitality was without stint. 
Cordial in his manners, his fascinating magnetism 
drew all hearts towards him. Once he entertained 
the correspondents of the Whig newspapers ; they 
had rarely given him a good word, but they admitted 
that there was never a more genial host. 
' Mrs. Pierce never made an enemy, and 'the general 
was so popular that their departure from Washington 
was regretted, socially, by Democrats and Whigs. / 

His administration was a stormy one. The gov- 
ernment had long before come from the smooth lakes 
into the rapids ; every year brought it nearer to the 
falls, and it would be well if it did 'not go down in 
the whirlpool. 

The special feature of the finely delivered inaugu- 
ral was the support of slavery ; the president 



290 MRS. PIERCE. 

pledged himself to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law, 
which was the keynote of his administration. He 
had fought for the South, and now did what he could 
to conciliate it. 

The man had gone who staunched the wounds 
with his cement, which had caused only a temporary 
lull in the excitement. The Missouri Compromise 
had been broken, and, at the bidding of the South, 
was repealed. 

Stephen A. Douglas had thrown a fresh apple of 
discord, in bringing forward a bill organizing the 
Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, and advocating 
what was called ''squatter sovereignty." Kansas was 
mainly settled by Northerners, and they were about 
to meet, to decide if the territory w^ere to be bond or 
free, according to the doctrine proposed by Douglas. 

A prominent leader in Missouri said that the Slave 
States were brought to such a pass that no man 
among them should have any qualms of conscience 
about violating law. 

Each party had sent armed men into the territory, 
and amid lawless violence each party fought its way 
to the polls. There was an appeal to Congress, and 
General Pierce ranged himself in favor of the Slave 
States. 

The expedition sent to Japan by Mr. Fillmore com- 
pleted its work in General Pierce's term. 

He had gracefully made his old military superior, 



MRS. PIERCE. 291 

General Scott, commander-in-chief of the United 
States army. 

Trouble had risen again over Mexican boundaries, 
but this time, General Gadsden, directed by Con- 
gress, amicably settled it by paying ten million dol- 
lars for a strip of territory which has ever since been 
known as the Gadsden Purchase. 

As General Pierce's term drew to a close, Missouri 
and Kansas were more turbulent than ever, and he 
left the difficulty as a legacy to his successor. 

He had lost all his Northern support, and the 
Southerners were ungrateful and passed him over. 

If a President be not elected for a second erm, it 
is considered a reproach upon his policy, and Pierce 
was one to feel the mortification. 

'^^Mrs. Pierce drooped more and more, and her hus- 
band took her to Madeira for a six months' sojourn. 
She rallied and they travelled for eighteen months 
through the principal countries of Europe. 

She lingered on an invalid for a few years more, 
and died of consumption, in 1863. 

During the Civil War, the Abolitionists denounced 
General Pierce as a Copperhead, and politically he 
incurred a good deal of obloquy. At Concord he 
made a speech which was called the " mausoleum of 
hearts' speech." 

Every drop of blood that he inherited from his 
father, who fought in the Revolution, every impulse 



292 MRS. PIERCE. 

of his nature repelled the charge of his being a 
traitor to the Union. 

To a friend who had led a portion of the Sixth Regi- 
ment through Baltimore, and now stood in his uni- 
form ready to go again to the front, he said : " Were 
I to offer my sword to my country, the act would be 
maligned, but when I shall cease to love and cherish 
the Union of these states, life will have lost for me 
all that gives it any value. I do not approve of all of 
the acts of the administration, but if I were situated 
as you are (he had a dying wife on his hands) I would 
do as you have done and as you propose to do, and I 
say, God bless you and prosper you." 

Socially, he never lost his popularity ; he was 
always the genial host, generous neighbor, and kind 
friend. He was a stanch member of the Episcopal 
Church. 

He lived to see the North triumph, slavery abol- 
ished, the Unioff secure, and he thanked God for it. 

He died in 1869, lamented by all who personally 
knew him. 



MISS LANE. 

/ The successor of General Pierce was our first 
\ bachelor President. To do the social honors of the 
Executive Mansion, he brought a young and beauti- 
ful girl. There is always a charm in maidenhood, 
when combined with youth and beauty ; added to 
these Miss Harriet Lane had culture, learning, pol- 
ished manners, high-bred airs, tact, and winsome 
ways, alike to all her uncle's guests. 

It is said, that there are no more beautiful and 
fascinating women in the world, than the Irish of the 
upper class. They indulge in wit and gayety, with a 
perfect abandon that belongs to no other nation. 
This young girl had an Irish grandfather ; her mother 
inherited his features and his social qualities, and had 
transmitted them to her daughter, with an infusion 
of Scotch blood, which made her canny and true, and 
of English blood, which stamped her as a pure Anglo- 
Saxon, united with the indefinable grace which 
belongs to the American girl. 

Her mother died when she was seven, and her 
father two years later, leaving her an ample fortune 
and a host of relations. Many doors stood open for 

293 



294 MISS LANE. 

the orphan, and young as she was, she was allowed 
to choose which she would enter, 

James Buchanan had never been given to petting 
or caring for children, but there was something in 
his handsome face and remarkable presence that 
took the child's fancy. She was one of the ir- 
repressible sort, the very imp of mischief. She 
reasoned that there were no aunts or women in 
Uncle James's house, and with the great ears of 
little pitchers, she had heard his sad love story, 
which somehow made him doubly interesting. " I 
will go to Uncle James," was her decision. He was 
pleased and more than glad to take this child of his 
favorite sister and train her to womanhood, that she 
might light a home which would never have a legiti- 
mate mistress. 

In the spring of his days, when hearts naturally 
turn to love, he had never thought to lead the life of 
a bachelor. He was a great admirer and a perfect 
connoisseur of beautiful women, and there was some- 
thing fascinating in his courtly and deferential man- 
ner toward them. 

He wooed one who was not only very beautiful, 
but very wealthy, and he did not woo in vain ; they 
were engaged, happy, and called the handsomest 
couple in all the country round. Either his whole 
heart was not in the matter, or the fates were against 
them. 



MISS LANE. 295 

Mr. Buchanan was a lawyer, and his extensive 
practice often took him away from home. After 
one of his trips, which had been longer than usual, 
he delayed going to the girl whose heart was in his 
keeping. It was from no pressure of business, for 
he found time to visit a married couple, who were 
his intimate friends. The visit and the delay, im- 
patient as the girl was, might have been condoned, 
perhaps, with frowns and tears, but still condoned ; 
but alas ! those married friends had a guest, and the 
guest was a young and very charming girl. Both 
were young and there was some harmless coquetry 
— would have been harmless had there been no busy- 
bodies. One swept across their path and divined 
with a devil's instinct the wound she could inflict 
upon the rich, beautiful, envied Miss Coleman, the 
betrothed of Buchanan. 

A call was made, a garbled story, fashioned by the 
informer's evil intent, was told. It is said that jeal- 
ousy is born of love. Very wroth, not waiting to 
calm her jealous passion, the girl wrote an angry 
note, breaking her engagement. Mr. Buchanan re- 
ceived it in a crowded court room, and it was noticed 
that his cheek blanched. 

Had the girl been penniless, Buchanan could have 
brooked her anger and sued again, but she be- 
longed to the richest family in the country, was rich 
in her own right, and he was too proud. She had 



296 MISS LANE. 

charged him with coldness and indifference; then she 
must think him sordid, his motives interested. He 
toolc her at her word and her troth was given back. 

Shortly after, a party of young people, among 
whom was Miss Coleman, under a chaperon, 
planned to visit Philadelphia to attend an opera. 
They went and took rooms at a hotel. When they 
dressed for the evening. Miss Coleman complained 
of feeling ill, too ill to join the party. They went 
without her ; upon their return, they flocked to her 
room to see if she were better, and to tell her of the 
delightful treat that she had lest — ^ to their horror, 
she lay dead before them. 

There was a great excitement, and it created no 
end of talk. Her family were very reticent, but it 
was supposed that the unhappy girl, in her despair, 
went away unbidden. 

Mr. Buchanan was overcome with grief, and 
begged of her father the privilege of being allowed 
to be one of the mourners at the burial. Mr. Cole- 
man, naturally indignant, returned the letter without 
other answer. 

It is said that Buchanan cherished the memory of 
his lost love to his dying day. It is hardly to be 
supposed that a m.an of honor and feeling, who had 
brought his first love to so tragic an ending would 
ever marry. 

The romping, mischievous child, regardless of the 



I 



MISS LANE. 297 

proprieties, brought fresh life and a flood of sunshine 
into the bachelor's home. She gave frequent cause 
for rebuke and at times he would threaten to place 
her with two maiden ladies in the village, whose 
notions were very rigid as to the deportment of 
young girls. In one of the sessions of Congress, of 
which he was a member, he really did it. The little 
girl bewailed her lot, and wrote him letters of hard- 
ships and homesickness, but he adhered to his plan 
during his seven months' absence. If they kept her 
subdued, she came home as boisterous and trouble- 
some as ever; yet when she was the most trying, 
her uncle would proudly say, " She has a soul above 
deceit or fraud. She never told a lie, she is too 
proud for it." 

At the age of twelve, she was sent with an elder 
sister to a school in Charlestown, Virginia ; her 
vacations were spent with Mr. Buchanan, and once 
he went so far in his indulgence as to take her with 
him in a summer trip to Bedford Springs. 

There was a convent school in Georgetown, of 
much celebrity for turning out accomplished women. 
Her uncle asked her if she thought she would be- 
come a Roman Catholic if she went there. " I can't 
promise, I don't know enough about their faith," 
said the girl, fearing lest her honest answer would 
spoil her chance of going. '' Well," said he, " if you 
become a good Catholic, I will be satisfied." She 



298 MISS LANE. 

did not become a Catholic, but she gained and 
returned the love of the nuns, and ever bore 
witness to their purity and self-denying lives, and 
by letters and visits kept up her friendship with 
them. 

While she remained with them, her Sundays were 
spent with her uncle in Washington. 

At seventeen, she left school, and was placed at 
the head of his house. 

Buchanan himself inherited the versatile talents of 
his Irish ancestry. He graduated from college with 
honors at the age of eighteen ; was tall, graceful, 
handsome, overflowing with animal spirits. He stud- 
ied law and was admitted to the bar at twenty-one, 
and before he had finished his third decade stood at 
the head of the Pennsylvania bar with an extensive 
practice. 

He was opposed to the war of 1812, but when 
Baltimore was threatened, he enlisted as a private 
and marched to its defence. He entered the State 
Legislature at twenty-three; served five terms in 
Congress ; appointed by Jackson, was minister to 
St. Petersburg, where by his skill in diplomacy he 
gained important privileges for his country in the 
waters of the Black and Baltic seas. He was a sena- 
tor to Congress, Secretary of State under Polk, 
Minister to St. James's under Pierce, and President of 
the United States — a galaxy of honors, and had he 



MISS LANE. 299 

lived in less troublous times, his name would be 
among the first on the page of history. 

He had endorsed Clay's compromise measures and 
much was hoped from his election, as he avowed in 
his inaugural, that his policy would be '' to destroy 
any sectional party, whether North or South, and to 
restore if possible, that national, fraternal feeling 
between the different states that had existed during 
the early days of the Republic." 

In the last months of his administration, men who 
had scorned the hero of New Orleans, would wring 
their hands in agony and think a day of the ignorant 
Jackson, would be better than a cycle of the learned 
and elegant Buchanan, hopelessly bewildered, folding 
his arms in weak despair, declaring that by his con- 
stitutional oath he had no power to save the Union. 
Jefferson stretched the Constitution to buy Louisiana, 
and it did not give way ; and now it did seem as if 
the warp and the woof of it might be tested for the 
savins: of the Union. 

Yet Mr. Buchanan had the jewel of consistency. 
In his early manhood, he had said, ''The older I 
grow, the more I am inclined to be what is called a 
State Rights man." He had endorsed Tyler, op- 
posed the Ashburton Treaty, favored the annexation 
of Texas, on the plea of affording that security to the 
southern and soutli western Slave States, which they 
have a right to demand ; assisted Polk in his meas- 



300 MISS LANE. 

ures to bring on the Mexican War, opposed the 
Wilmot Proviso, approved enforcing the Fugitive 
Slave Law to the letter, and at Ostend urged wrest- 
ing by force from Spain her fairest jewel, lest she 
should abolish slavery and thereby " her possession 
of it should endanger the existence of our cherished 
Union r 

The man with this record was the Democratic 
nominee for the Presidency in 1856, and received the 
necessary electoral votes, though Fremont, his 
opponent had the popiilar vote. 

.He was an adept in the arts of diplomacy, and as a 
foreign minister maintained the honor of his country 
and gave satisfaction to all parties. 

The first vexed question at the English court was 
the important one : in what manner he should array 
his person to appear before the Majesty of England } 

Years before, when this matter of dress was dis- 
cussed at home, and the court dress exacted by 
crowned heads forbidden, Mr. Buchanan had said : 
" Imagine a o-rave and venerable statesman, who had 
never attended a militia training in his life, appearing 
at court arrayed in a military coat, with a chapeau 
under his arm, and a small sword dangling at his 
side." 

In the happy days of her married life, Victoria 
always opened parliament in person. By her order a 
circular was sent to Mr. Buchanan, inviting him to 



4 



MISS LANE. 301 

be present — but there was an addendum saying 
that no one would be admitted who was not in full 
court dress. 

If Mr. Buchanan could not go as he would before 
the majesty of his own country, he would not go at 
all and he did not. Stay away when bidden by the 
Queen of England ! The American minister not 
present at the opening of Parliament ! The English 
press had a theme. 

He wrote home to the State Department that he 
will wear no gold or lace embroidery, but that he has 
consulted the Master of Ceremonies about a dress 
which will not shock the Queen, and yet be not much 
different from that of an American citizen at home. 

It was suggested that he should wear the civil 
dress of Washington. Go back half a century and 
presume to affect the style of the Father of his 
Country ? make himself ridiculous } Not he. 

"Fashions have so changed," he said, "that if I 
were to put on this and wear it at one of our Presi- 
dent's receptions, I should be the subject of ridicule 
for life." 

He had written for his niece, Miss Lane, to join 
him in England. Now he wrote that it would be 
better for her to be at home, for his contumacy will 
probably prevent his being invited to court, and if the 
Queen drop him, she may be sure all London society 
will. 



302 MISS LANE. 

The Queen was to hold a levee and she was gra- 
cious enough to repeat her invitation, making no 
stipulations as to dress. 

Mr. Buchanan was every inch a gentleman, and 
wished to yield so far as his dignity as an American 
citizen would permit. Again he took counsel with 
the Master of Ceremonies. At his suggestion, he 
added a plain dress sword to his usual evening 
suit. 

He wrote Miss Harriet that he expected to pro- 
duce a sensation and to be a subject of court gossip. 
When it was over he wrote again, " I appeared at 
the levee on Wednesday last in just such a dress as 
I have worn at the President's a hundred times, a 
black coat, white waistcoat and cravat, and black 
pantaloons and dress buttons, with the addition of 
a very plain black-handled and black-hilted dress 
sword. This, to gratify those who have yielded so 
much and to distinguish me from the upper court 
servants. I knew that I would be received in any 
dress that I might wear ; but could not have antici- 
pated that I should be received in so kind and dis- 
tinguished a manner. Having yielded, they did not 
do things by halves. As I approached the Queen, 
an arch but benevolent smile lit up her countenance, 
as much as to say, ' You are the first man who ever 
appeared before me at court in such a dress.' " I 
confess that I never felt more proud of being an 



MISS LANE. 303 

American than when I stood in the brilliant circle in 
the simple dress of an American citizen." 

Miss Lane joined him and then came another vex- 
atious question. In the American minister's house 
there is a presiding lady who is neither wife nor 
daughter — what shall be her status .<* how shall she 
rank in the diplomatic corps ? In those days, Vic- 
toria, with her wise domestic counsellor at her side, 
was ever gracious ; the elegant Buchanan had be- 
come a favorite, and she had seen his blue-eyed 
niece, with her wealth of golden hair, had noted her 
grace and beauty, and decided that she should have 
the precedence due to a wife. 

At the first drawing-room, Miss Lane made a 
great impression. On their return home, her uncle 
said: '* Well, a person would have supposed you 
were a great beauty, to have heard the way you 
were talked of to-day. I was asked if we had many 
such handsome ladies in America ; I answered, 'Yes, 
and many much handsomer — she would be scarcely 
remarked there for her beauty.' " . 

Americans abroad were enthusiastic over their 
receptions, and the grace and dignity with which 
Miss Lane presided at the Embassy. 

Her robust figure and fine color, added to her 
blonde beauty, gave her an air so English that some 
questioned if she were an American ; it was said that 
she looked like the Oueen before her marriage. If it 



304 MISS LANE. 

be true that she ever resembled Victoria, she must 
possess some elixir for preserving beauty which the 
Queen kens not of. 

When Leo XIII., in the spring of 1887, gave the 
red hat to Cardinal Gibbons, the tribunes of the 
Salia Regia of the Vatican were crowded with 
princesses, ladies of the diplomatic corps, and dis- 
tinguished personages, who had flocked there from 
all parts of Europe, and it was remarked that among 
the handsome women, the most remarkable looking 
was Mrs. Johnston of Baltimore, nee Lane. 

Victoria has the air of a queen, can step so royally 
that she appears taller than she really is ; but her 
face has the stamp of a fat, blowzy cook. 

Miss Lane enthusiastically loved England and 
everything English — English people, unless they 
came as lovers, and there was a string of those. 

Her uncle was always her confidant, and many a 
love tale had she to pour into his ears, but never for 
a moment did she propose to become one of the 
Queen's subjects and expatriate herself. 

When Mr. Buchanan was nominated for the presi- 
dency, he returned to America. The contest was a 
violent one, but in March he was inaugurated in a 
more imposing style than any who had been before 
him. 

At the time. Miss Lane was in mourning for a 
sister, whom she dearly loved ; in a few weeks she 



MISS LANE. 305 

lost a brother, who was to have been an inmate of 
the White House. The first season she paid no 
visits, but at a reception she was always at her 
uncle's side, and never did a more imposing couple 
receive the nation's guests. 

A foreign correspondent described her at the first 
New Year's reception : " The Anglo-Saxon beauty 
in full toilet dc demi-dcidl, wearing no ornament but 
a necklace of seed-pearls, looked charming, receiv- 
ing the ladies and gentlemen presented with grace 
and affability. She was surrounded by groups of 
diplomatists and officials, with ladies of her acquain- 
tance, forming a picture more beautiful, although 
not so gaudy as the sovereign she resembles ; that is, 
before Queen Victoria became Mrs. Albert Guelph." 

Buchanan had the honor of receiving the first 
Japanese Embassy to this country, numbering 
seventy-one ; eight of the chief dignitaries were 
entertained at a dinner. The chief object of their 
visit was to procure an English copy of the treaty 
between Japan and the United States, signed by the 
President, the original one having been burned. 
The Japanese copy had been saved, and they 
brought an unsigned duplicate of it, which they 
never allowed out of their sight. 

When Queen Victoria and Prince Albert sent 
their first-born to visit Canada, the President sent an 
\ invitation for him to extend his trip and visit the 



306 MISS LANE. 

United States. It was accepted, and Count Renfrew, 
as the Queen preferred that he should be called, and 
his suite were entertained at the Executive Mansion 
with princely hospitality. The young gentleman 
wearied of the ceremonies, but patiently went B 

through a public reception and a diplomatic dinner. 

Miss Lane took him to a young ladies' boarding- 
school, and this was an amusement more in accord- 
ance with his tastes and his age. There was a 
dreadful rumor that at Washington, as at some other 
cities, he slipped away from his guardians, and 
visited some places from which Victoria's son and 
the heir of England's throne might as well have 
stayed away. 

Born and reared amid pomp and ceremony, he 
naturally preferred pleasures and people where they 
did not come in. He would have liked a dance, even 
went so far as to propose it, that he might mingle 
with the beauties of the capital, but Mrs. Polk had 
properly settled that matter, and Buchanan declined 
to revive it, even for his princely guest, on the score 
of propriety. 

What ivas thought a proper amusement for the 
great grandson of George the Third was a visit to 
the grave of Washington. The President, Miss Lane, 
the diplomatic corps, and the chief officers of the 
government, with the prince and his suite, sailed to 
Mount Vernon in the steamer '' Harriet Lane." The 



MISS LANE. 307 

Prince stood beside the President, looked solemnly if 
not reverently at the tomb ; planted a tree to shade 
the grave of the man his ancestor would have liked 
to have beheaded, and then have placed the gory 
trophy on Tower Hill. The young man did what he 
was told to do, but he made no expression as to the 
enjoyment of such a treat. 

When Victoria sent a letter of thanks for the cour- 
tesy and hospitality bestowed upon her son, she 
mentioned this trip, as if it were the crowning honor 
shown him, so of course it really was the proper thing 
for the President to take him there ; and the Revolu- 
tionary score is all blotted out. 

It proved a rather expensive amusement for the 
government, and there was a contention when pay- 
day came. Buchanan insisted that if Congress 
would only pay the bill from the contingent fund, he 
would do it from his private purse ; after a good 
deal of haggling, the Secretary of the Treasury 
paid it. 

Political affairs were like a seething cauldron all 
through Buchanan's term. In the first year, a fresh 
slavery difficulty stirred the country. 

Dred Scott and his wife had been taken by an 
army surgeon to different posts in the Free States, 
and then were taken back to slavery in Missouri. 
Either from the air, or the Abolitionists, they had 
learned much about freedom, and claimed it on the 



308 MISS LANE. 

ground that, by an act of their master, they had been 
taken into free territory. The case was referred to 
the Supreme Court, and the Chief Justice ruled that 
they were slaves still. 

This, added to the Fugitive Slave Law and the 
Kansas troubles, roused an insane fury among the 
Abolitionists. 

John Brown, half crazy with what he had endured, 
had come from Kansas to Virginia, thinking to run a 
quixotic tilt with the institution of the South, and if 
he could not succeed was ready to wear the martyr's 
crown. To show his sincerity, he took his own sons 
for his esquires, and he was a particularly fond father. 
With a small band, he seized the United States 
Arsenal, at Harper's Ferry, thinking he could rouse 
a grand insurrection among the slaves, and when the 
scheme was well inaugurated, the Abolitionists of the 
North would pour down, and to himself would belong 
the glory of freeing his native land from what he 
called its curse. Unfortunately for him, the sons of 
Ham were not of the heroic type, and though the 
Abolitionists could sing paeans to him and for him, 
they were far too wise to join in so mad, so hair- 
brained a scheme. 

For a while, a very short while, John Brown had 
things in his own way ; then the United States 
troops were upon him. His boys were shot down, 
but the unhappy old man, taken while he knelt be- 



MISS LANE. 



309 



tween them, encircling one with his arm, was re- 
served for the doom his fanatic zeal had courted. 

The fire-eaters of the South had now the capital, 
which the Dred Scott decision had given the Aboli- 
tionists of the North. They accused the whole Re- 
publican party of complicity in what had been done 
on their sacred soil. 

The troublous term of Buchanan was drawing to a 
close. Abraham Lincoln was the Republican nomi- 
nee for the fall election of i860, and the Democrats 
were divided. Mr. Lincoln's political notions were 
that slavery must be protected where it was, but 
must not be carried into the Free States. Under 
Polk, Pierce, and Buchanan, Southern leaders had 
had things pretty much in their own way and now 
they arrogantly said that if this Northern man, with 
Northern principles, were elected their states would 
secede. 

People at the North had heard this bluster about 
secession all their lives, had heard that cotton was 
king, didn't care much if it were; could cry vive /e 
roi without choking ; they of the South thought the 
love of the Union and an undimmed flag was simply 
a sentiment, which Northerners were too sordid, too 
much taken up with money making, to fight over; 
then, if worst came to worst, they counted upon a 
host with Southern principles' who would defend 
their cause. 



3IO MISS LANE. 

Lincoln was elected. The government was out of 
the rapids now, and the solemn fall began. 

General Scott begged, almost on his knees, that he 
might move, at least secure government property. 
Buchanan was in despair, impotently wringing his 
hands, but dared not move, or at least, would not. 
In his last message, he declared that the Executive 
had no constitutional power to use the army or 
navy to save the Republic. Scott had lived under 
an earlier regime, where there had been no pusilla- 
nimity, and he had been given carte blanche to use 
the forces of the United States for the suppression 
of secession, which under such measures soon came 
to grief. 

Virginians deprecated secession, and proposed 
that all the states should send commissioners to 
Washington, to settle the feud. It was called the 
Peace Congress, and John Tyler was the president 
of it. 

On Washingon's birthday, there was a military 
parade, made up of the militia and the United States 
troops stationed at the Arsenal. Tyler had the 
audacity to sharply rebuke Buchanan for permitting 
it. He meekly excused himself, saying that he 
*' Found it impossible to prevent two or three com- 
panies of regulars from joining the volunteers with- 
out giving offence to the tens of thousands of people 
who had assembled to witness the parade." 



MISS LANE. 311 

The Peace Congress was a failure, and the country 
presented the spectacle of two governments, two 
capitals, two presidents, and two flags. 

Never had man worked and schemed harder than 
Buchanan to reach the seat of Chief Magistrate of 
the United States, and now he feverishly longed to 
have his evil days come to an end. 

On the fourth of March, he rode to the Capitol 
with Lincoln, who walked into the Senate chamber, 
leaning on his arm ; the inauguration over, he re- 
tired to his home in Wheatland. 

Never was the Executive Mansion maintained in 
better style than during the days of Buchanan and 
Miss Lane ; the President's salary, half what it is 
now, was wholly inadequate to its maintenance, and 
he encroached heavily upon his private fortune. 

There is a sort of pathos in the man's whole 
history — a man so nobly endowed by nature ; in his 
youth he was shipwrecked in love ; in age, crowned 
with his country's honors, he left the chief magis- 
tracy with tarnished honors, and spent his last years 
writing a book defending his course. 

Some said that he was a traitor ; a larger number, 
that he was only weak, without will, or moral cour- 
age; had not the endowments for emergencies. One, 
rather severe, claimed that in the tentative period of 
political issues assumed by his party, Mr. Buchanan 
could always be found two paces to the rear, but in 



312 MISS LANE. 

the hour of triumph he marched proudly in the front 
rank. 

In his retirement, by no word or act did he ever 
take any part or show any sympathy for or against 
the great Rebellion, but he lived to see the North 
triumph, and the Union intact. 

When he had passed his seventieth year, he was 
asked to give away the niece he had taken and 
trained from childhood. At Bedford Springs, where 
they were accustomed to spend their summers. Miss 
Lane had met and loved Mr. Henry Elliot Johnston. 
In January, 1865, she wore the orange blossoms; 
the marriage ceremony was performed by her uncle. 
Rev. Edward Y. Buchanan ; the remainder of the 
winter was spent in Cuba. On their return, the pair 
settled in Baltimore, where the husband had bought 
and furnished a house, which was his wedding gift to 
his bride. 

Her pleasure in the Episcopal church service led 
her to be confirmed in the church of which her 
uncle Edward was the rector. She had two sons, 
and the elder bore the name of James Buchanan. 

At his death in 1868, Buchanan left his fortune to 
Mrs. Johnston, and Wheatland is her summer home. 
Brilliant as was the career of her youth, the latter part 
of her life has been shrouded with sorrows. She has 
outlived all the numerous relatives of her early years. 
She has hecome a widow and lost both her sons 



MISS LANE. 313 

within the last seven years. Two years since, she 
visited at Washington, staying with Mrs. Hornsby, 
the daughter of Mr. Buchanan's Attorney-General, 
Judge Jeremiah Black. 

After having been for twenty-five years a prom- 
inent figure in official and diplomatic society, she 
leads a life of great seclusion. 



MRS. LINCOLN. 

As one reads the story of Mrs. Mary Todd 
Lincoln, one can but feel as if human history as 
told by Homer, were repeated in this woman's sad 
life — as if she were another Cassandra, having the. 
power of foretelling future events and having all her 
predictions disregarded and, like the Cassandra of 
old, was thought to have '* eaten of the insane root 
that takes the reason prisoner." The elder had one 
advantage over this nineteenth-century woman, for 
the ancients looked upon the mad as outside the 
pale of humanity, and thought their fantastic brains 
somehow allied them with the gods, and so treated 
them with reverence. 

Miss Todd was well born and well bred, was the 
daughter of Hon. Robert S. Todd of Lexington, 
Kentucky. As a child she was restless and pecu- 
liar, and in her early girlhood she would talk of her 
future as if she saw it all mapped out before her. 
She was to be the wife of a president, and queen it 
over the White House. She wearied of her father's 
house, and went to her sister, Mrs. Ninian W. 
Edwards, in Springfield. 

314 



MRS. LINCOLN. 315 

She was rather attractive, and young men sought 
her society ; she scanned them all ; never thought of 
love, only weighed the chances each had of leading 
her to the goal of her ambition. One brilliant suitor 
came a wooing ; of all she knew, he, to the common 
eye seemed most likely to reach the presidency ; but 
her prophetic vision told her that the wife of 
Stephen A. Douglas was not to be the wife of a 
chief magistrate of the United States. 

When she was twenty-one, Abraham Lincoln paid 
his suit. He was a lawyer by profession, had been 
a member of the state legislature, a member so poor 
that he had walked to Vandalia, the capital, one 
hundred miles away, — his only luggage being a 
bundle which he carried in his hand, and when the 
session was over, he went as he came. 

Every feature of his sober, grave face, sad-eyed 
even then, was more than plain, and he was long- 
legged, awkward, gaunt, — one whose exterior would 
hardly have suited the fancy of a young girl, eleven 
years his junior. 

Endowed as she was with second sight, she had a 
terrible shrinking, — once declined the proffered love, 
then placed her hand in his, feeling sure that she 
had taken her first step toward the White House. 

What made this engagement more peculiar than 
any ever told was that the lover too had shrinkings; 
morbidly doubted if his love were strong enough to 



3l6 MRS, LINCOLN. 

make the girl's happiness safe in his keeping. His 
proposal was made upon the most trifling acquaint- 
ance, made because he sensitively thought that she 
expected it. When she declined, he thought that 
she did it on his account, and with a singular power 
of tormenting himself felt that he had touched and 
wounded her heart, and must urge the girl again, 
even after each had expressed open doubts of their 
fitness for each other. An unsuccessful lover some- 
times falls into the depths of despondency and is pro- 
foundly miserable, but here we have one in this state 
because he is a successful one. No wonder that the 
towns-people thought that the girl's fantastic brains 
were to be matched with brains equally fantastic. 
Miss Todd had not won beauty, but she had pledged 
herself to a man whose heart was full of tenderness 
and honest, manly devotion, nor was the "rail- 
splitter " the boor that he was represented. 

Before the marriage, his fidelity led him into what 
he deemed to be one of the most foolish acts of his 
life. Miss Todd had written a satirical poem about 
a young lawyer in town, and a mischievous friend 
had had it printed. The lawyer was very wroth and 
insisted that the editor should give him the name of 
the writer. To screen his betrothed, Mr. Lincoln 
said : " I take the responsibility." A challenge was 
sent and accepted ; preliminaries were settled, and 
the choice of weapons fell to Lincoln ; he chose 




MRS. LINCOLN. 317 

broadswords, hoping to make it simply a fencing 
affair; however, at the time of the meeting, friends 
interposed and the difficulty was amicably arranged. 

In the Executive Mansion, Lincoln was once asked 
if this story were true. He admitted the fact, but 
bade the man, if he valued his friendship, never 
allude to it again. 

As one reads the singular story of Lincoln's life, 
one feels that he was born great, that greatness 
was never thrust upon him. He was born in a log- 
cabin, a son of the poorest of the poor, of a man 
who could neither read nor write, a wandering day 
laborer, without any force. It is said that mothers 
not fathers transmit their qualities to their sons. 
Abraham Lincoln had an excellent mother, and when 
he filled the highest station he bore testimony to her 
worth : ''All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my 
angel mother ; blessings on her memory ! " Her 
impress was made early, for she sunk under hard- 
ships and died when he was but ten years old. It 
was she who taught him to read and write, and 
managed that he should have a little schooling, six 
months, — all that he ever had. 

The family were Baptists, but in the sparsely 
settled neighborhood where they lived, there was 
no clergyman of any kind. The boy could not be 
content to have his mother laid away without a 
funeral sermon, and wrote an itinerant preacher. 



3l8 MRS. LINCOLN. 

who had known her, but was a hundred miles dis- 
tant ; the man came on horseback to perform this 
simple service. 

At twenty-one Abraham Lincoln bade good-by to 
his father's house, and went forth, as he said, to seek 
his fortune. He worked as a hired laborer, glad 
of any honest service ; but the dream of his life 
was to acquire an education, and half the night, 
and every spare moment of the days, was given to 
attain it. 

He was the captain of the volunteer band that 
Colonel Zachary Taylor took out of the state of 
Illinois to follow Black Hawk. General Jackson ap- 
pointed him postmaster of New Salem, but as he 
carried the mail in his hat and distributed the letters 
and papers when he chanced to meet their owners, 
it hardly seems as if he had made a rise in the offi- 
cial world. At twenty-five he had mastered English 
grammar, was a good speaker, and elected to the 
state legislature. This was a step forward, and he 
began the study of law. Post-office duties kept him 
at New Salem, but he would walk to Springfield, 
borrow and carry home a load of books on his back, 
and under trees master their contents. Law books 
he would borrow at night and return at the opening 
of the office in the morning. 

Who, but one endowed with a prophetic gift, could 
have divined that this man was to be President of the 



MRS. LINCOLN. 319 

United States, and come down in history as the peer 
of Washington ? 

In October 1842, he is doubtful if he will ever 
marry, but in November he overcomes his reluctance, 
and stands up and meets his fate like a man bent on 
doing his duty. He took his bride to the Globe 
Tavern in Springfield, where he mentions in a letter, 
that board was to be had at four dollars per week. 
Prosperity began to dawn, and his spirits to rise ; 
the anxieties and forebodings which had so tortured 
him seemed to have passed away, or with a strong 
hand he had crushed them beneath his feet, as if 
they were disloyal to the woman who bore his name. 
Four children were born, and one died. 

He always inclined to the side of mercy, never re- 
fused a case for the lack of a retaining fee ; would 
boldly defend a man who had helped a fugitive slave 
to Canada ; whether it were right or wrong, it 
showed a pitiful heart, especially as it brought him a 
load of obloquy. 

He almost lost his faith in the capacity of the 
Americans for self-government when Clay was passed 
over for Polk, who, after the Mexican War, he always 
maintained had washed his hands in innocent blood. 
In 1847, he was elected to the lower House in Con- 
gress. Mrs. Lincoln had no desire to accompany 
him, until she came to her own — she could see her 
early vision coming true. 



320 MRS. LINCOLN. 

The calamitous term of Buchanan was drawing to 
a close. The cracks in the Union were gaping wider 
and wider, and the only man who had known how to 
make and apply the cement was gathered to his 
fathers. Patriots and statesmen were very sober. 

In the Convention of i860, Seward and Lincoln 
were the prominent candidates, and heavy bets were 
made in favor of Seward. In Chicago an immense 
building called the " wigwam " was prepared ; while 
the balloting went on, a man was stationed on the roof 
to announce the result to the masses in the streets. 
At the first and second ballot Seward led, as the 
third was taken, one of the secretaries shouted to the 
man : *' Fire the salute, Abe Lincoln is nominated." 

Mr. Lincoln sat in a newspaper office in Spring- 
field to hear the returns. At last they came, in his 
favor. The excitement and enthusiasm of his towns- 
men knew no bounds. In the midst of it all, he 
pocketed the telegram and said : " There is a little 
woman on Eighth Street who has some interest in this 
matter." As the news of his election was flashed 
over the wires, this little sentence came too ; many 
sneered that this should be his first thought. He 
only knew how quivering with excitement the little 
woman was ; how she had foreseen and pictured 
it years before he saw her face, — knew she took his 
hand with the conviction that he would bring this 
thing to pass. It was wise to keep her calm by end- 



i 



MRS. LINCOLN. ^2 1 

ing the suspense, for there was but little doubt of his 
election, when nominated. 

Now that she had the sugarplum for which she 
had so long waited, she had no patience with the 
confusion it entailed, nor with the guests it brought 
to do her husband homage. 

The sorely tried man took a room at the State 
House and received his friends there. 

Just after his election, Mr. Lincoln had a vision, 
and his sibyl interpreted it — oh, how truly! He 
told the story himself : " It was after my election 
when the news had been coming in thick and fast all 
day, and there had been a great ' hurrah boys,' so 
that I was well tired out and went home to rest, 
throwing myself upon a couch in Mrs. Lincoln's 
sitting-room. Opposite was a bureau, upon which 
was a looking-glass. As I lay, my eye fell upon the 
glass. I saw myself reflected full length, but my 
face had two separate and distinct images ; the tip of 
the nose of one, being about three inches from the 
tip of the other. I was a little bothered, I may say 
startled — got up and looked in the glass, but the 
illusion vanished. On lying down again, I saw it a 
second time, even plainer than before, and then I 
noticed that one of the faces was much paler than 
the other. I got up, the thing melted away, I went 
off, and in the excitement of the times forgot all 
about it, nearly, not quite, for the thing would once 



322 MRS. LINCOLN. 

in a while come back to me and give me a little pain, 
as if something not pleasant had happened. When 
I went home I told my wife about it, and a few days 
after I tried the experiment again, when, sure enough 
the thing came back again, two faces, and one so 
much paler than the other. But I never could bring 
the ghost back after that, though I once tried very 
hard to show it to my wife, who was somewhat wor- 
ried about it. She said it was a sign, and her inter- 
pretation of it was, that I was to be elected to a 
second term of office, and the paleness of one of the 
faces was an omen that I should not live to its end." 
In the latter part of February, Mr. and Mrs. 
Lincoln and Mrs. Lincoln's two sisters, with the 
boys, Robert, Willie, and Tad, left Springfield for 
Washington. There were rumors that Lincoln was 
to be assassinated as he passed through Baltimore. 
The chief of the police had kept his eyes open, and 
through one of his corps of detectives had learned 
that a gang of roughs were to get up a row and, in 
the confusion, one, detailed with a revolver, was to 
do the work. A special train was, therefore, ar- 
ranged at Harrisburg to take him through in the 
night, and as soon as he started, the wires were cut. 
His early coming made a great stir ; it was said that 
he came in disguise, but the disguise was nothing 
more than a travelling cap and shawl, which were 
loaned him. His friends were confirmed in their 



MRS. LINCOLN. 323 

belief that there had been a plot, by a Southern 
member of the Peace Congress exclaiming, in the 
excitement of his early appearance : " How in the 
mischief did he get through Baltimore ?'* 

Mr. Lincoln told an amusing story of the coming 
of his inaugural. He had put it in what he called a 
gripsack, and given it to the care of his oldest boy. 
''When we reached Harrisburg," he said, ''and had 
washed up, I asked Bob where the message was, 
and was taken aback by his confession, that in the 
excitement caused by the enthusiastic reception, he 
believed he had let a waiter take the gripsack. My 
heart went up into my mouth, and I started down- 
stairs, where I was told that if a waiter had taken 
the article, I should probably find it in the baggage- 
room. Hastening to that apartment, I saw an im- 
mense pile of gripsacks, and thought that I discov- 
ered mine. The key fitted it, but on opening, there 
were inside but a few paper collars and a flask of 
whiskey. Tumbling the baggage right and left, in a 
few moments I espied my lost treasure, and in it the 
all-important document, all right." 

The President-elect paid his respects to the Pres- 
ident in power. Members of the Peace Congress 
called to see what the " beast " was like. Maybe he 
was not versed in all the refinements of society ; but 
somehow he pleased even the prejudiced ones of this 
class. He seemed to know the antecedents of each 



324 MRS. LINCOLN. 

one, and as he shook hands, had a pleasant and 
appropriate word for each ; to the son of Clay, he 
said : " I was a friend of your father." The members 
expressed themselves as agreeably disappointed, — 
said that artists had done his face injustice. There 
was something in the eye and expression of Abraham 
Lincoln that an artist could never catch. 

Times were very ticklish, and there was a great 
uncertainty about the ceremonies of the inauguration. 
General Scott had a batch of letters, each telling of 
some fiendish plot, and he protested against a pro- 
cession. The Republicans had triumphed, and their 
organization in Washington determined to celebrate 
their triumph by very grand doings. To the threats 
of assassination they said '' fol-de-rol." 

General Scott gave a reluctant consent, provided 
there were no Wide-awakes connected with the affair. 
He directed the committee to consult with Buchanan 
and Lincoln. 

Buchanan said that he could see no reason for 
departing from the general usage. He thought 
General Scott unnecessarily alarmed, but it was best 
to have deference to his opinion. He bade them say 
to Mr. Lincoln, that it would give him pleasure to. loan 
him his carriage and ride with him to the Capitol. 

They repaired to Lincoln's hotel and delivered their 
message. For answer, — " Mary, Mary, come here." 
Mary came. " Mary, the President has tendered the 



MRS. LINCOLN. 325 

use of his carriage, and agreed to accompany me to 
the Capitol when I am sworn in." ''That was very 
kind, and of course you'll accept the offer," said 
Mary. "Mary, by the way, I see some one has 
presented you with a carriage." 

After this domestic dialogue, Mary retired, and the 
committee presumed to speak again and tell him 
what they wanted. He rose, threw his leg ov^er the 
back of a chair, rested his chin on the palm of his 
hand and said : " When I was practising law in 
Illinois, a client of mine, a peculiar sort of a fellow, 
was brought before the court, and the judge asked, 
* Do you swear or affirm ? * ' Mr. Judge,' replied my 

client, ' I don't care a which.' " The committee 

took this for consent, and made their arrangements 
for a fine inauguration. 

Scott had been curbed in his desire of crushing 
the rebellion at the outset, but to protect the Presi- 
dent-elect, he put all his engines in motion. 

Washington volunteers had the honor of forming 
the bodyguard. United States troops were in the 
rear, and in every intersecting street, sharpshooters 
were stationed on the roofs all along the route. 
Police and detectives in uniform and out of uniform 
lined the walks. Scott would say now and then : 
" Thank God, all is going on peaceably." 

Buchanan and Lincoln rode in the same carriage, 
preceded by a triumphal car containing thirty-four 



326 MRS. LINCOLN. 

young girls, each representing a state in the Union ; 
none were recognized as having seceded. Lincohi 
entered the senate chamber leaning on the arm of 
Buchanan, who looked pale, anxious, and excited, and 
Lincoln firm and very serious. 

As he read his inaugural, it was Douglas, the 
" little giant," whom he had distanced in love and in 
the race for the Presidency, that held his hat and for 
the short space of life left him, endorsed his meas- 
ures. 

For a time it seemed as if the government had 
gone to pieces, and the parts were in the whirlpool 
clashing against each other. 

Senators, representatives, officers of the army and 
the navy went one after another. Lee denied that 
there was cause for secession, but when Virginia 
went, there was a pathos in his remark to Scott : 
" General, the property belonging to my children, all 
that they possess, lies in Virginia. They will be 
ruined if they do not go with their state. I canno-t 
raise my hand against my children." When told that 
Scott had called him traitor, he went away silently, 
almost with humility. General Scott was also a Vir- 
ginian, and when his state sent a member from its 
convention to tender him the command of Virginia 
troops, with tempting promises of wealth and honors, 
he sternly bade the man stop, lest he were compelled 
to resent a mortal insult. 



MRS. LINCOLN. 32/ 

The first great act in the drama to be played was 
forcing the lowering of the flag at Sumter. By the 
rejoicing at the South, one would have thought that 
their cause was fought and won. The rebel Secre- 
tary of War said, *' By the first of May, the Confeder- 
ate flag will float over the dome of the old Capitol at 
Washington," adding : '^ Let them try Southern chiv- 
alry and test the strength of Southern resources, and 
it may in time float over Faneuil Hall itself." 

Surely, '^ whom the gods would destroy, they first 
make mad." 

People at the North had been apathetic ; said 
there must be " no coercion " ; but when the news 
came over the wires that the stars and stripes were 
down at Sumter, sparks touched tinder, or as Beecher 
eloquently expressed it : " The spark that was kin- 
dled at Fort Sumter, fell upon the North like fire 
upon autumnal prairies." 

None who can remember the day will ever forget it. 

The President called for seventy-five thousand men, 
and they sprang into line. The miners of Pennsyl- 
vania came first. The first blood was drawn at Bal- 
timore as the *' Old Sixth " of Massachusetts passed 
on its way for the defence of the national capital. 
Every drop of blood shed on that memorable nine- 
teenth of April was but the sowing of the dragon's 
teeth, and " armed men sprang up from every acre of 
ground in the North and West, ready to sweep Balti- 



328 MRS. LINCOLN. 

more into the sea for her assault and her presump- 
tion," and to protect the Union. 

The Southerners said Alabama needed blood to 
keep her in line. The blood was shed, and the South 
was unified as well as the North. The war spirit 
swept over the country like wildfire. 

The second act was the Battle of Bull Run. It 
was Greek meeting Greek, and the Northern troops 
stampeded before Southern chivalry. The grief and 
the rejoicing were all repeated. 

The North never flinched, but braced up with the 
same stalwart vigor that nerved Peter the Great 
when beaten by Charles the Twelfth. 

The Southerners thought they had already donned 
their boots for Faneuil Hall, the goal of their hearts' 
desire. 

The Abolitionists had denounced the Union and 
the government, and it was supposed that they 
would be in their element amid the strife they had 
helped to stir up. If there were an undercurrent of 
exultation in the thought that the slaves would rise, 
and the work for which they had schemed would be 
done, yet they, with Northern men with Southern 
sympathies, rallied round the flag. In the second 
year, the President issued a call for three hundred 
thousand men, and they went into line, singing, — 

" We are coming, Father Abraham, 
Three hundred thousand more." 



MRS. LINXOLN. 329 

So the miserable months wore on ; the North ahiiost 
always the under dog, but plucky. 

The canny Scotch tell us that "it's a lang lane, 
that has nae turning." 

The story of Vicksburg and of Gettysburg, told on 
the same day, told the North and the South that the 
lane had come to a very sharp bend. At the North 
there were budding hopes, that when the lane turned 
again, it would have a well-rounded corner to meet 
the Southern lane, and the two would run in no tan- 
dem style but abreast. 

Upon the arrival of the family at the Executive 
Mansion, Mrs. Lincoln was all bustle and excitement, 
and began at once to prepare for the reception which 
she had so often planned. 

She was *'fat," hardly ''fair, and forty " ; that she 
was the successor of the popular, elegant, and accom- 
plished Miss Lane was not a point in her favor. 

At the first levee, she appeared in pink silk, 
decollete, short-sleeved, and a floral headdress, 
which ran down to her waist and destroyed what 
comeliness simplicity might have given her. If to 
dress and reign as a queen had been the fond dream 
of her life, in the waking reality she was far from 
happy. The President did not share her tastes, and, 
weighted with care and sorrow as he was, she could 
not mould him to her notions. The elite of the old 
Washington society did not take kindly to her, 



330 MRS. LINCOLN. 

indeed would hardly recognize a woman whose dress 
was fantastic, and whose conduct at times was so at 
variance with good breeding. She was not at all 
conciliatory toward those who came to see the Presi- 
dent ; from first to last, never did anything to stamp 
his career with even social success. Dinner enter- 
tainments were given up, the large dining-room was 
closed, and the press said by the parsimony of Mrs. 
Lincoln. She was a bitter cup of domestic misery 
pressed closely to the lips of a man who was con- 
tending with party hate and rebellious strife, and he 
quaffed it with a Godlike patience, always treating 
her affectionately, and calling her "mother" ; if she 
were rude to his guests, he treated them with a 
tender delicacy, as if he wished to atone. 

A portion of one of the President's messages was 
telegraphed to the press in advance of its delivery. 
When the matter was sifted, the offender said that 
he was under promise of strict secrecy as to how he 
came by it. Lincoln intuitively knew the source of 
the mischief, and when a garbled story was told by 
the gardener, he begged that it might be accepted 
and he be spared from the disgrace of the truth. 

February 5, 1862, when the hospitals were crowded 
with wounded soldiers, and everything wore a gloomy 
outlook for the government, Mrs. Lincoln gave a 
large party, honored by the presence of the French 
princes. The press was very severe upon her, say- 



MRS. LINCOLN. 33 I 

ing, " Come what will, the queen must dance," but 
if she had expected pleasure, it proved an evening 
of unendurable length and every smile was forced. 
Willie, a bright, intelligent lad of eleven years, was 
very ill. For two nights his mother had hung sleep- 
lessly over him, and every now and then did she and 
the President steal away from the gay throng to 
spend a few moments by his bedside. He never 
recovered ; Mrs. Lincoln would never again enter 
the room where he died, or the Blue Room where 
his body lay in its casket. The President's natural 
tendency to melancholy deepened, and he would 
often say : " Whichever way the war ends, I have 
the impression that I shall not last long after it is 
over." 

Mrs. Lincoln, after the loss of her boy, indulged in 
more vagaries than ever, and the most mortifying 
one was jealousy. One would have thought that the 
homely, angular Lincoln, haggard and careworn, 
was an Adonis, the sight of whom would win a 
woman's heart. By chance, a gentleman once 
alluded to a favor the President had granted a 
lady. Mrs. Lincoln fell into such a paroxysm of 
rage and jealousy, declaring that she never allowed 
the President to see a woman alone, that she shamed 
all present, and her husband left the room with 
bowed head and averted face. 

At another time a lady, mounted, rode by the side 



332 MRS. LINCOLN. 

of the President, while Mrs. Lincoln followed in a 
carriage ; her anger knew no bounds, and when she 
saw the woman, upon their arrival, she taunted her 
with her conduct as if she were one of the demi- 
monde, even (vainly) insisted that her husband, who 
was an efficient general in the army, should be dis- 
charged. The popularity of General Grant roused 
her ire against Mrs. Grant, and she accused her of 
schemins: to scet the White House for herself. At 
another time, she flew into a rage because she sat 
unbidden in her presence, and asked her, " how she 
dared } " 

The New Year's reception of 1863 at the Execu- 
tive Mansion is particularly memorable, being the 
day when the Emancipation Proclamation went into 
effect. The blacks gathered in the grounds about 
the house, and when the white folks left, poked in 
their woolly heads, furtively at first, then boldly made 
a rush to shake the hand of " Massa Linkun " and 
say a "God bless you." 

The people endorsed the measures of Lincoln in 
1864, by a re-election ; this, and the hopeful state of 
military affairs, rather roused him from his constitu- 
tional melancholy and the beckoning finger of the 
skeleton, death, seemed for a time overshadowed. 
From the imbecility of the government of his pre- 
decessor, he had inherited a thorny wilderness of 
perplexities, and he had bravely trod its paths. 



MRS. LINCOLN. 333 

though with a bleeding heart ; once had said, " I 
shall never be glad any more." The prospect of 
peace, a united and a free country, seemed to open a 
brighter vista. The Southern Confederacy had been 
kept in its fatal isolation by an abhorrence of slavery 
prevailing among civilized mankind. 

Clay had said in his last days that a war for 
slavery would have no sympathy, no good wishes, 
all mankind would be against it, and the history of 
the country itself would be against it. His vision 
was clear, but it went no farther ; only eleven years 
had passed since his death, and the country had been 
baptized in blood and slavery, was a thing of the past, 
destroyed by its own supporters. 

The inauguration of 1865 passed off quietly; the 
precautions of 1861 were unthought of. In the 
evening there was a brilliant ball, and the President 
and Mrs. Lincoln sat on a raised dais ; though the 
President had become feeble, weary, and worn, his 
face wore an unusual air of smiling content. At the 
time *' it was thundering all around the heavens," 
and the plucky under dog was the upper one, with 
its fangs fast closed upon its adversary. 

General Lee surrendered on the ninth of April, 
and on the eleventh the White House was brilliantly 
illuminated, and crowds gathered to offer their 
congratulations. The President made what proved 
to be his last address ; there was only a passing 



334 - ^^^' LINCOLN. 

allusion to the success of the army, but he pleasingly 
dwelt upon reconstruction. The "erring sisters" 
had come back and the chief object was to hold 
them in a close embrace, and cover them with the 
flag. 

Good Friday, April 14, the President and Mrs. 
Lincoln, with a party of friends, by the invitation of 
the manager, attended Ford's Theatre to see Miss 
Laura Keene's company in the "American Cousin." 
To attract a crowd, a personal notice had appeared 
in the daily papers that both the President and 
General Grant would be present. At no time did 
Mrs. Grant care to go in company with Mrs. Lincoln, 
and just now she was longing to see her children, 
who were at school in New Jersey, and she per- 
suaded the general to accompany her. The tired, 
soft-hearted President went, lest the people would be 
disappointed if he didn't go. 

The theatre was packed, and as the party entered 
their private box, every one rose and vociferously 
cheered. Soon after, John Wilkes Booth, an actor 
of disloyal repute throughout the war, by showing a 
false card to the President's servant, gained access to 
the box. He held a small Derringer pistol in one 
hand and a double-edged dagger in the other. The 
President's back was towards him, and so quiet were 
the assassin's movements he did not turn. The 
pistol was held close to his head, and the bullet fired. 



MRS. LINCOLN. 335 

There was a report and a puff of smoke, but before 
any one could realize what had happened, Booth 
exclaimed, *' Sic semper tyrannis ! The South is 
avenged," jumped upon the stage, left the theatre, 
was in his saddle, and gone. 

The President did not move, but soon the people 
realized what had been done. The excitement and 
confusion were intense. Men shouted, and women 
shrieked and fainted. 

Miss Laura Keene was the most self-possessed, 
and procuring water and cordials climbed into the 
box from the stage. The unconscious President was 
taken across the street and examined by surgeons, 
who pronounced the wound a mortal one. 

Mrs. Lincoln followed the men who bore her 
husband, uttering the most heartrending shrieks, 
and through the night sat with her son Robert, 
moaning in an adjoining room, — -at times she would 
wildly start and cry : '' Why didn't they shoot me } " 

Several of the cabinet, with Senator Sumner, 
watched over the sufferer and at times sobbed like 
women. He died about half past seven in the morn- 
ing, and, placed in a coffin, was borne by six soldiers 
to the Executive Mansion. 

Only children had slept in Washington that night; 
it had been one of terror, soldiers had stood to their 
arms, mounted men had patrolled the streets, and 
every one was inquiring for the latest news. 



336 MRS. LINCOLN. 

As the sad story sped over the wires, bells were 
tolled from ocean to ocean, and flags were at half 
mast. Every church, town, and hamlet was draped 
in mourning — even the supply of black goods was 
exhausted. 

The President was embalmed, and on the following 
Wednesday, funeral services were held in the East 
Room. The body was removed to the rotunda of 
the Capitol, where, under guard, it remained over 
night. It, with the body of his little son, Willie, was 
placed in a funeral car, and the sad pageantry began. 

Never before had there been such a procession or 
such a funeral. 

The remains were taken to Independence Hall, 
Philadelphia ; City Hall, New York ; and at Cleve- 
land a building was erected in the Park, and Bishop 
Mcllvaine, read the burial service upon the opening of 
the casket. The sons, Robert and little Tad, were 
the chief mourners, and the abandonment of the 
latter to tears and grief touched every heart. 

May 4th, dust was committed to dust, and ashes 
to ashes at Oak Bridge Cemetery, Springfield, his 
old home. His martyrdom had placed the final seal 
upon his renown, and his name will fill a place in the 
annals of the world which will ever be held sacred. 

A political opponent, one, whose name figured in 
the history of the war, said of him: ** Abraham 
Lincoln was all that his admirers claimed. He was 



MRS. LINCOLN. 33/ 

a Providence. The abolition of slavery v/as beyond 
man ; it was of God, and Abraham Lincoln was his 
chosen instrument." 

His miserable assassin was tracked and hunted 
like a dog, and when tracked to his hiding-place shot 
down as he was about to use his weapon against his 
pursuers. A couple of extracts from his diary give 
his version of the matter, and explain what was half 
suspected, — 

''April 14, Friday, the Ides. Until to-day nothing 
was ever thought of sacrificing to our country's 
wrongs. For six months we had worked to capture ; 
but our cause being almost lost, something decisive 
and great muzt be done. But its failure was owing 
to others, who did not strike for their country with a 
heart. I struck boldly, and not as the papers say. I 
walked with a firm step through a thousand of his 
friends, was stopped, but pushed on. A colonel was 
at his side. I shouted, ' Sic semper' before I fired. 
In jumping broke my leg. I passed all his pickets ; 
rode sixty miles that night with the bone of my leg 
tearing the flesh at every jump. I can never repent 
it. Though we hated to kill. Our country owed all 
her troubles to him, and God simply made me the 
instrument of his punishment. The country is not 
what it was. This forced -union is not what I have 
loved. I care not what becomes of me. I have no 
desire to outlive my country. This night, before 



338 MRS. LINCOLN. 

the deed, I wrote a long article and left it for one of 
the editors of the National Intelligencer, in which T 
fully set forth our reasons for our proceedings. He 
or the South." 

"Friday, 2\. After being hunted like a dog, 
through swamps and woods, and last night being 
chased by gunboats, till I was forced to return ; 
wet, cold, and starving, with every man's hand 
against me, I am here in despair. And why t For 
doing what Brutus was honored for, — what made 
Tell a hero. And yet I, for striking down a greater 
tyrant than they ever knew, am looked upon as a 
common cutthroat. My act was purer than either 
of theirs. One hoped to be great himself, the other 
had not only his country but his own wrongs to 
avenge. I hoped for no gain ; I knew no private 
wrong. I struck for my country, and that alone, a 
country ground beneath this tyranny; and prayed for 
this end, and yet, now behold the cold hand they 
extend to me. God cannot pardon me if I have done 
wrong. Yet, I cannot see any wrong, except in 
serving a degenerate people. The little, the very 
little I left behind to clear my name, the government 
will not allow to be printed. So ends all ! For my 
country I have given up all that makes life sweet 
and holy, brought misery upon my family, and am 
sure there is no pardon in the heavens for me, since 
man condemns me so. I have only heard of what 



MRS. LINCOLN. 339 

has been done (except what I did myself) and it fills 
me with horror. God ! try and forgive me, and bless 
my mother. To-night I will once more try the river 
with the intention to cross, though I have a greater 
desire, and almost a mind to return to Washington, 
and in a measure clear my name, which I feel I can 
do. I do not repent the blow I struck. I may 
before my God, but not to man. I think I have 
done well, though I am abandoned with the curse of 
Cain upon me; when, if the world knew my heart, 
that one. blow would have made me great, though I 
did desire no greatness. To-night I try to escape 
these bloodhounds once more. Who, who can read 
his fate ? God's will be done. I have too great a 
care to die like a criminal. Oh, may He, may He 
spare me that and let me die bravely. I bless the 
entire world. Have never hated or wronged any 
one. This last was not a wrong, unless God deems 
it so, and it is with him to damn or bless me. And 
for this brave boy, Harold, with me, who often prays 
(yes, before and since) with a true and sincere heart, 
was it crime in him } If so, why can he pray the 
same ? I do not wish to shed a drop of blood, 
but I must fight the course. 'Tis all that's 
left me." 

Perhaps it was well that he was shot down by 
Sergeant Boston Corbett, as the masses, in their 
frenzied rage, only thirsted for his blood, and it 



340 MRS. LINCOLN. 

would have required a large force to have protected 
him from being torn in pieces. His body lies in an 
unknown grave ; it is believed to have been taken 
in the night upon the Potomac, and, well weighted, 
flung to its bottom. 

The half-demented Mrs. Lincoln, hugging her 
misery, clung to her palace. Johnson was very 
courteous, and bade her remain as long as it suited 
her to do so. Congress paid her eighteen thousand 
dollars, — the remainder of the year's salary. 

Though there was no need, she applied to Con- 
gress for a pension, and even to private individuals 
for money, and of course it was bruited abroad by 
the newspapers. The Republicans, who had sub- 
scribed to the fimd of one hundred thousand dollars, 
paid to Mrs. Lincoln after the death of her lamented 
husband, were naturally very angry. 

The English know just how many Sepoys to bind 
and shoot from one cannon's mouth, always know 
what is justice, and are always bowed to the earth 
at injustice, and so stood on their side of the water 
and shied stones, declaring that the American 
people owed this woman reverence for her very 
name's sake, — the widow of the "Emancipator." 

Mrs. Lincoln created a sensation in the autumn 
of 1867, by offering for sale, in a small upstairs 
room on Broadway in New York, what she repre- 
sented to be her wardrobe in the White House. 



MRS. LINCOLN. 34I 

Those who inspected the collection said the object 
of this exhibition could not have been to realize 
money from the sale. With the exception of some 
lace, camel's hair shawls, and a few diamond rings, 
there was nothing which any lady could wear or 
which would not have been a disgrace to a second- 
hand clothing store. The dresses, those that had 
been made up and worn, were crushed, old-fashioned, 
and trimmed without taste. The skirts were too 
short for any but a very short person, and were 
made of the commonest muslins, grenadines, and 
bareges. All were cut extremely low in the neck 
and could not be available for any purpose. There 
were some brocaded silk skirts in large, heavy 
patterns, which had been made but not worn, but 
these had no waists, while the prices put upon them 
and the other articles were exorbitant. The object 
was to stimulate Congress to grant her a pension. 
Thurlow Weed said that the Republicans, through 
Congress, would have made proper arrangements, if 
she had deported herself in a way to insure respect. 

The miserable woman's troubles multiplied. Tad, 
the pet and darling of his father, died at eighteen. 
She went abroad and lived obscurely for years, not 
always in the best of company. On her return she 
quarrelled with her son, and dragged their private 
affairs into court at Chicago, where the secret 
malady under which she labored was first disclosed. 



342 MRS. LINCOLN. 

and his conduct vindicated. Congress had granted 
her a pension of three thousand dollars, afterward 
increased to five, but her doings became such a 
scandal, that both her person and finances were 
placed under supervision. She died at Springfield, 
Illinois, July i6, 1882, in her sixty-third year. 

In 1876, there was an attempt to steal the body of 
Lincoln, which was in a marble sarcophagus within 
the tomb. This led some young men of the place to 
form what was called the Lincoln Guard of Honor.. 
In 1878, lest the body might be stolen, they removed 
it from its marble tenement and placed it in a secret 
grave, and when Mrs. Lincoln died, they placed hers 
beside it. April 14, 1887, the Guard surrendered 
their trust to the Lincoln Monument Association. 
The bodies were each in walnut coffins, inclosed in 
a cedar one and that in a pine box. When they 
were exhumed, the lid of the President's was removed, 
and those who stood around and had known him 
alive, easily discerned his features. The silver plate 
^was bright on which was inscribed, "Abraham 
Lincoln, i6th President of the United States. Born 
Feb. 12, 1809, died April 15, 1865." While the 
remains were exposed to view, the president of the 
Guards turned them over to the Association. 

The Guards signed a certificate that the remains 
were those they received from the Association in 
1878, and they in turn signed a certificate that the 



I 



MRS. LINCOLN. 343 

remains were those of Abraham Lincoln ; then the 
coffin was sealed by a plumber. 

In the vault of the old tomb a cavity eight feet 
long, six wide, and five and a half deep, bricked and 
cemented, had been prepared, in which the coffins 
were placed side by side. A brick arch was built 
over them, this was covered with cement mixed with 
small, broken rock. 

Two guards remained on duty at the tomb until 
the cement became hard. 

The marble sarcophagus, in which the public had 
supposed the remains to be for so many years, is 
still within the vault. 



MRS. JOHNSON. 

As Mrs. Lincoln sat in the White House, half de- 
mented, wringing her hands, not so much for the 
dead husband as for the grief of giving up what her 
fantastic fancy had ever pictured as if it were her in- 
heritance, another woman of an entirely different 
type, advanced to take her place. 

Grief, ill-health, and hardships had made her pre- 
maturely old ; but for her husband's sake, she would 
have preferred her humble home among her neigh- 
bors in the Tennessee mountains, where she was 
born and married, had borne and reared her children. 

She had been the pretty daughter of a poor widow, 
and, with the improvidence of the poor, had married 
at sixteen a boy of eighteen. He had come a 
stranger from North Carolina and worked as a 
journeyman tailor ; belonged to the class called the 
*' poor whites." 

When hardly past infancy, his father was drowned, 
and until he learned his trade, his mother had sup- 
ported him by the hard labor of her own hands. His 
thoughts turned to love early ; before he emigrated 
to Tennessee, he had won the promise of a young 
girl, but her father set him aside as too young, and 

344 



MRS. JOHNSON. 345 

forced his dans^hter to take back her troth. In emi- 
grating, the boy, with real manliness and filial affec- 
tion, had taken his mother with him, saying his turn 
had come to support her. 

He could neither read nor write ; while learning 
his trade, he had, by the aid of the other apprentices, 
mastered the alphabet. A philanthropic missionary 
wandered among the Tennessee mountains, and, 
wherever he went, tried to rouse a desire for mental 
improvement among the young men — pictured the 
advanta2:es of learnins:, and the assistance it would 
be in advancing them in life. 

This tailor drank in every word and formed heroic 
resolves. His young wife was his superior in literary 
attainments, and she became his teacher in reading, 
writing, and arithmetic. The working days were 
long, not ten hours as now. The wife would hurry 
through the household tasks to attend her pupil-hus- 
band in the evenings. If we may judge from his 
progress, either she was a remarkable teacher, or he 
was a remarkable scholar ; later days and events 
show that both were remarkable. 

Words came easily to his lips, and the towns-people 
soon dubbed him with the name of Demosthenes. At 
twenty, he was an alderman of the little city of 
Greenville, and two years later, mayor ; at twenty- 
seven, in the state legislature ; at thirty-five, mem- 
ber of the lower house in Congress ; at forty-five 



346 MRS. JOHNSON. 

Governor of Tennessee, twice elected, and thrice 
United States senator. Surely, Andrew Johnson 
had been no common boy. 

He boasted of, indeed, gloried in his humble trade, 
seemed to think it had the patent of nobility upon it, 
and bespoke the respect due to age, inasmuch as it 
was Adam's trade, the first manual work of which we 
read. 

That went a little too far for the rest of the world, 
who had always considered Adam's stitching of fig 
leaves an act of shame ; and, when cursed or blessed 
with legitimate work, was a tiller of the soil. 

It was natural, however, that this man should pride 
himself upon his ability to step from so humble an 
origin to the high plane upon which he stood beside 
the educated and the learned. 

While governor, he cut and made a suit of clothes 
for the governor of Kentucky, and sent it as a gift. 
The friend was a blacksmith by trade, and he re- 
turned the favor with a pair of shovel and tongs, 
forged by himself. 

Johnson, like Jackson was a North Carolinian, and 
in the senate he had fought secession as Jackson 
would have fought it. He was the only senator from 
the seceded states who retained his seat, and was wiser 
than the Southern leaders ; knew if it came to war, 
the South were to be the losers. He used no fine 
terms ; rebellion he called treason, and the leaders. 



MRS. JOHNSON. 347 

traitors. " Were I the President," he said, " I would 
have every one arrested, tried, and if convicted (em- 
phasized with a big round oath), they should hang as 
high as Haman." 

The fire-eaters were in a blaze of fury ; burned him 
in effigy, and threatened him with lynching ; even a 
price was set upon his head. 

Lincoln appointed him military governor of Ten- 
nessee and he entered upon his Jacksonian methods 
with vigor. The mayor and common council of 
Nashville, with the editors, were in the penitentiary 
at once. 

He issued an order declaring that if one Union 
man be maltreated, five rebels shall be seized, impris- 
oned and suffer the full rigor of the law. If Union 
property be destroyed, rebel property shall make it 
good, with pressed down measure. 

Then came a still more stringent order. If a dis- 
loyal wordhQ spoken, the offender shall take the oath 
of allegiance to the Union, give bonds in one thou- 
sand dollars for keeping quiet, or otherwise be sent 
South, and if such an one ever came again within 
Federal lines was to be hung. 

Six clergyman were charged with preaching 
treason from their pulpits, and these were added to 
the number behind the bars. 

The city was besieged by the rebel army, and 
some would fain surrender, lest worse might come. 



348 MRS. JOHNSON. 

''I am no military man," thundered Johnson, "but 
any one who talks of surrender, I will shoot." 

One so loyal, so bold, won the hearts of the Re- 
publicans, and he was put on the same ticket with 
Lincoln for his second term. 

When the intelligence reached Nashville, he was 
asked to address a mass meeting which had assem- 
bled to ratify his nomination. 

In his speech, he said : ** Slavery is dead. I told 
you long ago what the end would be if you tried to 
go out of the Union to save slavery, — that the end 
would be bloodshed, rapine, devastated fields, plun- 
dered villages and cities ; and therefore I urged you 
to remain in the Union. In trying to save slavery, 
you killed it and lost your own freedom. Your slav- 
ery is dead ; but I did not murder it. As Macbeth 
said to Banquo's bloody ghost, 

' Thou canst not say I did it : 
Never shake thy gory locks at me.' " 

Lincoln seemed tame, inert, beside this man of 
might. Johnson had in his own family suffered grave 
injuries from the rebel troops. His household was 
made up of women and children, and they were 
ordered from their home. Women of the North and 
those out of the military districts of the South can 
form little conception of the sufferings and anxieties 
of those exposed to the mercies of the troops. 



MRS. JOHNSON. 349 

Mrs. Johnson spent two months of the spring of 
1 86 1 with her husband at Washington, but her fail- 
ing health unfitted her for hotel life, and she returned 
to her home among the mountains. At that time, 
none thought things would come to the pass they 
did. 

In the spring of 1862, East Tennessee was in the 
hands of the rebels. Mrs. Johnson, with her fam- 
ily, were ordered by General Kirby Smith to leave 
their home and pass beyond the lines in thirty-six 
hours. She was too ill to obey, and the rebels merci- 
fully allowed her a respite. 

In the autumn, she, with her children and her son-in- 
law, Mr. Stover, started for Nashville. The rebels held 
Murfreesboro, and for Union people there^were no 
accommodations. They wandered about in the night, 
asking for food and shelter ; as they were plodding 
back to the station, which was a long way from the 
town, one woman with a soft, pitiful heart, yet full of 
terror lest her mercy should be her ruin, offered them 
shelter, if they would leave at dawn. An order to go 
back to Greenville awaited them at the station ; they 
could not pass the lines. Back they started ; Mrs. John- 
son was in constant terror lest her sons and son-in-law 
would be shot before her eyes, for again and again it 
was threatened. Somehow, a friend got a pass for 
them to go to Nashville, which was within the Union 
lines. A second night they were at Murfreesboro ; 



350 MRS. JOHNSON. 

this time they did not try the hospitalities of the 
town, but remained at the station through the night, 
without food or beds, save some dry bread for the lit- 
tle ones. 

A noted rebel, who had known them in happier 
days, pitied the helpless women, and telegraphed to 
Richmond for d safe-conduct. 

Mr. Johnson awaited them at Nashville, though 
they had been told repeatedly that he was killed. 
For many months Mrs. Johnson never left her room. 
Some time after their arrival, her daughter, Mrs. Pat- 
terson, with her children, passed through the military 
lines, and the family were united. A terrible grief 
was in store for them. A son, who was a surgeon in 
the army, was thrown from his horse and instantly 
killed. 

When the military governor was chosen vice-presi- 
dent, he went to Washington, and the family were 
about to return to their home in Greenville, but the 
fatal Good Friday came, with its awful tragedy, and 
they went to Washington instead. 

Mrs. Patterson was the oldest of the five children ; 
the poverty and cares of her parents in their early 
married life had imposed such serious burdens upon 
this daughter, that she seemed from childhood unlike 
other girls; she said herself, she never had time to 
play. When her father was» chosen senator, he 
brought her to Washington, and placed her at the 



MRS. JOHNSON. 35 I 

famous Academy of the Visitation at Georgetown, 
where so many of the senator's daughters were edu- 
cated. 

While Mr. Johnson was in the service of the state, 
his family spent some time with him in Nashville and 
made acquaintance with Mrs. Polk ; when Miss Mar- 
tha came to Washington, she gave her a standing in- 
vitation to spend her holidays at the Executive Man- 
sion ; though the lady was very kind, she was so 
stately, and the house was conducted in so ceremo- 
nious and so grave a manner, that these visits were 
dreaded seasons for the shy country girl. Her edu- 
cation finished, she returned home, and five years 
later married Judge Patterson. The wedding trip 
was to Nashville at the time her father was governor, 
and then extended through the Southern states. 
After joining her family at Nashville, in 1863, Rebel 
and Union armies by turns held East Tennessee, and 
the entire contents of her house were destroyed. Mrs. 
Polk in her carriage joined the procession in honor of 
Lincoln when the funeral cortege passed through Nash- 
ville, and Mrs. Patterson was by her side. 

In June, the president's family joined him in Wash- 
ington. The White House, after all the sad scenes 
enacted in it, was dirty and dilapidated. Mrs. John- 
son never appeared in society but once, and that was 
at a party given by her grandchildren, and her care- 
worn, pale face, and sunken eyes attested that she 



352 MRS. JOHNSON. 

was physically unable to preside over the Executive 
Mansion or receive its guests. 

Those who thought the President's family were to 
be a weight upon him, were little acquainted with 
his daughters. Mrs. Patterson was reserved, dig- 
nified, possessed all the mental characteristics cf 
her father, and upon her devolved the social duties 
of the White House. She could hardly be called a 
novice, for in her frequent visits with Mrs. Polk 
she had become acquainted with Mrs. Madison, the 
Blairs, and many others of the old families, who 
gladly welcomed her return to the capital. 

When some of the new leaders of Washington 
society tendered patronage, Mrs. Patterson quietly 
remarked : "We are a plain people from the moun- 
tains of East Tennessee, called here for a short time 
by a national calamity, but we know our position and 
know how to maintain it." 

When interviewed by a reporter, she said : '* We 
are a plain people, sir, from the mountains of Ten- 
nessee, and we do not propose to put on airs be- 
cause we have the fortune to occupy this place for 
a little while." In this dignified manner she dis- 
armed criticism and repulsed impertinence. 

On New Year's Day, 1866, the President held his 
first reception, assisted by both his daughters, who 
were dressed richly, but very simply. Mrs. Stover 
was a blonde of the statuesque style, and looked 



MRS. JOHNSON. 353 

very lovely in the mourning she wore for her hus- 
band, who had died two years before. 

In the spring, Congress appropriated thirty thou- 
sand dollars for renovating the mansion. It was a 
very small sum for the needs, but Mrs. Patterson's 
good taste and prudence in buying made it look 
handsomer than ever it had in times past. The 
traditional colors were preserved i.i the drawing- 
rooms, the walls were panelled in gilt mouldings, and 
the furniture was far more elegant than that which it 
had replaced. She kept the rooms ornamented with 
a profusion of rare flowers, and they were always 
ready to be seen by the crowds who came daily. 

The State dinners were particularly elegant, and 
conducted on a generous, princely scale. 

She confined herself exclusively to the social duties, 
and never could be induced to use her influence in 
official affairs. When the unhappy Anna Surratt 
threw herself prostrate upon one of the floors of 
an ante-room in the White House, begging to see 
Mrs. Patterson, she said : " Tell the girl she has my 
sympathy, my tears, but I have no more right to 
speak than the servants of the house." 

During the impeachment, she was particularly dig- 
nified and reticent, went on calmly fulfilling her 
duties, saying, "we have nothing to do but wait." 
Johnson was not a drinking man, but unfortunately, 
not feeling well, he took two glasses of brandy, and 



354 M^^S. JOHNSON. 

came to take the oath of office as vice-president in a 
state of extreme intoxication, disgracing himself and 
his high position. Lincoln had known the man for 
years, and comforted a Republican bowed with 
shame, by saying, '' he (Johnson) made a slip, but 
don't be scared, Andy ain't a drunkard." This 
**slip" occasioned much unfavorable comment, and 
in his unpopular career he was often taunted with it. 
Three hours after the death of Lincoln, he took the 
oath of office, and quietly assumed the duties of the 
Presidency. 

The difficulties of Johnson's administration grew 
out of a difference of opinion between himself and 
Congress upon the reconstruction of the states. 
When traitors rioted in their treason, and flaunted 
their rebellious sentiments in the Senate as they 
were retiring, Andrew Johnson roared defeat to 
secession, and defence of the Union into their ears, 
while Northern men stood shaking with their fears, 
but now his measures were softer toward the '* err- 
ing sisters " than Congress approved. He wished 
to grant pardons and receive states as if the execu- 
tive power were supreme ; on the other hand, it was 
claimed that Congress alone had the power to make 
conditions for the re-admission of the seceded states, 
and many were inclined to make the way of the 
transgressors very hard, and the conditions severe. 

It was war to the hilt between the President and 



MRS. JOHNSON. 355 

Congress ; the latter would pass bills and the former 
would veto them, and again Congress would pass 
them over the President's veto, asserting that he 
had broken his promises and betrayed his friends. 

They surrounded him with hedges and ditches, 
but Andrew Johnson, to have his own head, had 
spirit enough to break through the densest hedges, 
and bridge the broadest ditches. The obstructions 
themselves seemed to rouse the natural obstinacy 
of the man, and a defiance of all control. 

When he would remove one of his cabinet in 
violation of what was called the Tenure of Office 
Bill, which he had vetoed. Congress cast off all re- 
straint, and ordered that he be impeached for high 
crimes and misdemeanors. 

After a tedious three months' trial, he was ac- 
quitted by a single vote, which was said to have 
been given, lest worse might come through Mr. 
Wade, who would fill his place. 

The objectionable and discomfited Secretary of 
War, Stanton, resigned, and Evarts, who had de- 
fended the President, was appointed in his place. 

Johnson's best friends had not approved his course, 
but they manfully defended him from the charge of 
conspiring to sell the fruits of the war to the South, 
or, in other words, of having turned traitor. 

The English and French had refrained from active 
intervention in favor of the Confederate States, but 



356 MRS. JOHNSON. 

the latter had taken advantage of our divided house- 
hold to attempt a settlement upon the American 
Continent, and an Archduke of Austria had been 
chosen Emperor of Mexico. At the time, the 
United States government had made as strong an 
effort as they were able, to enforce the Monroe 
doctrine, but upon the surrender at Appomattox, 
the dream of dominion upon American soil faded 
from the mind of Napoleon III., and the French 
troops were withdrawn, leaving the luckless Maxi- 
milian to his fate. If the United States government 
had interceded, he would probably have been saved, 
but it was thought wise that foreign potentates 
should understand that the Monroe Doctrine would 
be enforced to the letter. 

The Indians in the southwest were suppressed by 
General Sheridan, and the Fenians coming over the 
Canadian border, bent on some mad scheme for 
delivering Ireland from British rule, by General 
Meade. 

No wonder that the massive, resolute face of the 
inflexible President grew haggard, and his four years 
of office turned him into an old man, for, with all 
these cares and anxieties, he kept up his impotent 
conflict with Congress. 

However, there were some very notable events in 
his administration, which savored only of peace and 
good will. By diplomacy and money, the country 



MRS. JOHNSON. 357 

was enlarged by the five hundred thousand square 
miles of Alaska. A Chinese Embassy came for the 
first time, granting the government immense com- 
mercial advantages, and the people liberty to pray 
and worship among the sons of Confucius, according 
to our own customs. 

Perhaps the most wonderful achievement of all 
was the successful laying of the Atlantic cable by 
Cyrus W, Field. 

Slavery was entirely abolished, and civil rights 
given to the blacks. 

The President's gracious Christmas gift in 1868, 
was a full pardon to all, save the President of the 
Confederacy, who had taken part in the rebellion. 
The interest on the immense public debt was 
promptly met, and many round millions paid upon 
the principal. 

Out of the thirty-four states, all but three were in 
amicable relations with the government, and for the 
presidency, as well as Congressmen, to represent 
themselves, voted just the same, as if they had not 
hustled out of the Union eight years before. 

Surely it was an administration fraught with great 
events successfully brought to a close. Notwith- 
standing the ruin and destruction by the war, the 
country was prosperous. 

The bullet of an assassin had placed Andrew 
Johnson in the presidential chair, but the voice of 



35^ MRS. JOHNSON. 

the nation was that he had not honored his high 
office. His own party would not nominate him, his 
best friends had become his most bitter foes, and he 
sank into obscurity. 

General Grant was his successor, and the two 
were at variance. Johnson had once impugned the 
honor of the soldier, which had so offended him that 
on the day of his inauguration, he refused to ride in 
the same carriage with him. 

The family had no sooner returned to their home 
among the Tennessee mountains, than a terrible 
domestic affliction fell upon them. A second time 
death came like a thief in the night, and snatched 
one of their number when in perfect health. A son 
was walking in the street at five o'clock, and at 
eleven mysteriously died. 

The cares of office and the discordant tumult in 
which Andrew Johnson had lived, seriously impaired 
his health. 

After a retirement of six years he was elected 
United States Senator from Tennessee. 

He took his seat March 4, 1875, and died in the 
summer at his home, soon after the adjournment of 
Congress. 

The invalid wife whom he had so tenderly guarded 
outlived him, reaching the allotted span of three- 
score years and ten. 



MRS. GRANT. 

In the first quarter of the present century there 
was a man in Ohio, of Scotch descent, who had three 
sons. The man was a tanner by trade, and would 
fain have brought up his sons to the same business, 
but the eldest had no mind to be a tanner. He had 
been a hard-working boy, with no advantages but the 
common village school, which was only open three 
months in winter. 

The father had no means of helping him outside 
of his own career, but if he could gain admittance to 
the Military Academy at West Point, government 
would support, educate, and teach him a trade, 
whereby he miight earn his own living. The boy 
proved to have fine abilities, and this economical 
plan was successfully carried out. He had been 
named Hiram to please his grandfather, and Ulysses 
to please his grandmother, whose fancy had been 
taken by the story of Penelope, who, to keep off 
suitors, sat for twenty years among her maidens 
unravelling by night what she had done in the day, 
feeling sure, if she were patient and faithful, her 
great husband, the Grecian Ulysses, would come 
back to her ; the boy's surname was Grant. 

359 



360 MRS. GRANT. 

By some mistake of the congressman who ap- 
pointed him to a cadetship, the War Department 
entered his name as Ulysses Simpson, and as it is 
made up of a class who are too busy to be bothered 
with trifles, his name was as fixed as if he had been 
christened thus ; he was never christened at all, so 
it didn't much matter. 

At the end of the four years' course, he was sent, 
with the rank of second lieutenant, to Jefferson 
Barracks, the largest military post in the country, 
near St. Louis, to watch and keep in place the vaga- 
bond and exasperated Indians. It was a monoto- 
nous, dreary life, and for a time the young man 
rather chafed under it, but fate opened a way to 
liirhten it. 

o 

One of Lieutenant Grant's classmates at West 
Point was Fred T. Dent, whose family lived on an 
estate called White Haven, only five miles from the 
barracks. It consisted of his parents, two bachelor 
brothers, and a couple of misses still in short dresses. 
Often did the young soldiers of the garrison gallop 
across country and have a taste of domestic pleas- 
ures. In the winter, a seventeen-year-old daughter, 
Miss Julia, just out of the schoolroom at St. Louis, 
came home. The house was none the less attract- 
ive, for the girl was full of life, high spirits, and 
gladly joined in the rides and walks of the young 
men. 



MRS. GRANT. 361 

Lieutenant Grant had a furlough, which he em- 
ployed to visit his parents in Ohio ; while there, he 
heard that his regiment was ordered to Fort Jessup 
in Louisiana to forui a part of General Taylor's 
army, which was gathering to provoke, if possible, 
a war with Mexico. He had chafed under the garri- 
son life at Jefferson Barracks and longed for more 
active service ; the activ^e service loomed before him 
and he shrank from it. Why ? The old story, not 
as old as Adam, who never went a wooing, but old 
as Cain, who did. A girl had coiled herself around 
his heart ; he did not know nor even suspect that 
the coil was clasped until these orders came. He was 
tormented with fear, lest the girl had never given 
him a thought, might reject a plea if he made it. 

To dar2 and to do began with Cupid before it 
began with Mars and with as much determined per- 
tinacity — perhaps, however, his natural coolness 
played him false with the former. Tn a state of 
suppressed excitement he mounted his horse; the 
short cut to White Haven was crossed by a fordable 
creek or river, which at that time was dangerously 
swollen by a heavy rain. 

Grant was a man who had his superstitions, and 
one was, that it you wish to do a thing successfully, 
do it, with never a step backward. He was too 
modest a man to hope for an easy triumph, and in 
business so momentous as this it would never do to 



362 MRS. GRANT. 

have a " sign " against him. He was a bold horse- 
man and into the current he rode ; it was well that 
he was a bold swimmer, too, for he was soon breast 
ing the current, as well as the horse. They were 
swept down the stream, but he had the animal by 
the bridle and you may be sure he headed him 
toward White Haven, where he astonished the 
family by his half-drowned appearance. 

One of the young gentlemen came to his rescue, 
and in dry, but ill-fitting habiliments, he partially 
explained his foolhardy attempt. He never could 
make a speech, but when he found Miss Julia alone, 
he uttered some jargon, that would have been unin- 
telligible if it had been heard by her mother, but 
quickening heart beats in her own bosom gave the 
girl marvellous powers of comprehension. If she 
didn't say yes, she acknowledged she had been 
depressed since she heard that the regiment had 
marching orders, and now that he had half drowned 
himself for her sake she could not but admit that 
the depression was only on account of one soldier, 
and lie was that one. 

Perhaps this was as much as was maidenly for a 
girl of seventeen, especially as the matter was not to 
be referred to her father. Though the whole thing 
was irregular, the young soldier sailed down the 
Mississippi with the light, happy heart of a suc- 
cessful wooer. 



MRS. GRANT. 363 

The parents had not been quite so blind as the 
pair thought, and they deprecated what they saw, for 
the young man was not particularly prepossessing, 
nor did his prospects seem brilliant ; however, the 
acquaintance was very brief, and then there were the 
chances of war ; for the love affairs of a chit of 
seventeen, they would cross no bridge, until they 
saw the timbers laid. The girl kept her own counsel 
and her constancy. 

Lieutenant Dent nearly lost his life; was only 
saved by the aid of his friend, who risked his own, 
and he wrote home a glowing account of the affair, 
which of course won the gratitude of his parents. 

General Taylor's army was first called an Army of 
Observation, then an Army of Occupation, and when 
the Mexicans were goaded to extremities, an Army of 
Invasion ; before it assumed this latter name, with 
the duties it involved. Lieutenant Grant asked for a 
short furlough. His engagement was not quite on a 
footing that pleased him, and a longing to see Miss 
Dent before entering upon actual war made him 
restive. Again he astonishes the family at White 
Haven, but this time in proper military trim. He 
plucks up courage to interview the father and when 
he leaves an engagement en regie was admitted and 
announced. 

The regiment took part in the battles of Palo Alto, 
Resaca de la Palma, and Montery ; before Buena 



364 MRS. GRANT. 

Vista was fought, they were sent to General Scott, 
who was making his way to the Mexican capital. 
Several times did the services of Lieutenant Grant 
have honorable mention in the official despatches. 

Upon the return of the regiment in 1848, Lieuten- 
ant Grant married Miss Dent and after his four 
months' furlough, spent in visiting took her to the 
barracks at Sackett's Harbor, a military post on Lake 
Ontario and thence to Detroit. After testing the 
pleasures and discomforts of garrison life, Mrs, Grant 
paid a visit to her home at White Haven, where a 
son was born. 

In 1852, the Fourth Lifantry, to which Grant be- 
longed, was ordered to the wilds of Oregon. It was 
not advisable to take his wife, and he left her for a 
time with his family, from whence she was to go to 
her own relatives. 

Camp life in time of peace was ever irksome to 
Grant, and added to the separation from his family 
seemed insupportable ; though he had been promoted 
to the rank of captain, he resigned and came home. 
He was poor, had no prospects, and his family was 
increased by the birth of a second son. 

Mrs. Grant owned some land near St. Louis ; 
thither he went, and with his own hands put up a 
house which sheltered them from the weather; then 
he began farming. It was not that he shirked hon- 
est work — would cut, load, and draw his wood to 



MRS. GRANT. 365 

market, like any practical farmer ; but there was no 
aptitude in the man for business or money making. 
The farm in his hands began to run behindhand, and 
the poor locality brought on fever and ague, which 
incapacitated him from work. 

His wife's family did their best to prop him up, 
and under their auspices, he- tried the business of a 
real estate agent, tax collector, and auctioneer, but 
nothing prospered or afforded support for his growing 
family — now, there were four little ones to care for, 
and each was born in the home of his father or of 
hers. 

Disheartened, he went to his father in Galena for 
counsel. The tannery business which he had refused 
to learn when a boy, was prosperous, and work in it 
was offered him. The vats were no more to his lik- 
ing than they were years before ; indeed, were 
doubly distasteful by being under the control of his 
younger brothers, but to gain honest bread for his 
family, he sacrificed inclination, crushed down pride, 
and upon meagre pay settled at Galena. He was 
not a Republican ; his political sympathies were 
rather with the South, and he had voted for Buchanan^ 
but the firing upon the flag at Sumter to him, as to 
most Northern people, meant rebellion and treason. 

"Uncle Sam, ' he said, "educated me for the army, 
and, although I have served faithfully through one 
war, I feci that I am still a little in debt for my edu- 



366 MRS. GRANT. 

cation, and I am ready and willing to discharge the 
obligation." 

Step by step he rose, and whei ever he went, swept 
like a tornado among the rebels and mowed with a 
bloody scythe, but he was matched with foemen 
worthy of his steel, and on both sides priceless blood 
flowed like water. 

That miserable four years of Civil War seemed, 
even to those far away from its horrors, like a cycle 
of time, which would have no end. 

He, who had begun- as a simple volunteer captain 
brought it to a close at Appomattox with the rank of 
lieutenant-general — rank which had only been held 
in our country by Washington and Scott, and Scott 
only by brevet. 

General Grant's moderation and magnanimity to 
the conquered placed a stamp on his greatness, even 
greater than his military skill. 

Mrs. Grant had spent much time at army head- 
quarters, but now a house was taken in Washington, 
and for the first time in her married life, a home and 
easy circumstances were combined ; the next four 
years are said to have been the happiest in the gen- 
eral's life. With honors enough to sate ambition, an 
appointment for life in his favorite line, ample pay, a 
pleasant home, — what more could man desire ? He 
was content, but not the Republican party : they 
chose him for their standard-bearer, and in an evil 



MRS. GRANT. 36/ 

hour for his peace and comfort, he lifted the standard 
aloft, and had become so used to success, that when 
elected, he said : " The responsibilities of the posi- 
tion I feel, but I accept them without fear ; " as fear- 
lessly had he accepted military responsibility, saying : 
" I feel as sure of taking Richmond, as I do of dying." 

He asked no counsel, — had no confidants, and 
even playfully teased his wife about his fears lest she 
should rise in the small hours and read his secrets. 
His sobriquet was the sphinx, and no man better 
deserved the title. 

Men had crowded from all parts of the country, 
and never was there a more imposing display at the 
national capital, than at the inauguration of General 
Grant. The day was wet, bitterly cold, and the mud 
ankle deep. He had refused to ride to the Capitol in the 
same carriage with Johnson, who sat, soured and sad, 
in the White House, until the booming of cannons 
warned him that he was no longer master, and must 
give way to the man whom he most detested. 

The new President began somewhat as an autocrat, 
and had a plenty of difficulties before him. 

Owing to his secretive methods, there was a diffi- 
culty in the beginning about making up a cabinet. 
Those chosen, first read of their appointments in 
the newspapers after the inauguration ; one was in- 
eligible, some declined the honor, and there were re- 
peated changes. 



368 MRS. GRANT. 

The Senate had rejected the Clarendon-Johnson 
treaty, in the Alabama affair, and unless a new treaty 
could be arrano-ed, war miirht be the result ; the Eno:- 
lish tories were doing their best to bring it about, urg- 
ing a violation of the treaty for arbitration, and there 
was much bitter feeling. The Secretary of State 
was very wise and very moderate, but he insisted 
that there should be on the part of England an ex- 
pression of regret for the escape of the '* Alabama " and 
the depredations upon our commerce, — the pay for 
damages was to be an after consideration. Only those 
in power knew the ominous size of the war cloud — 
but firmness and nice diplomacy dissipated it, and the 
United States, having but just emerged from a civil 
war, were spared a foreign one. England expressed 
proper regret and awarded fifteen million dollars in 
gold for direct injuries. 

At the time we acquired Oregon, no one compre- 
hended its value, and now the English raised a diffi- 
culty about the justice of the northwestern boundary, 
but by mutual consent the question was submitted to 
the German Emperor, who decided in favor of the 
United States. 

The little republic of Santa Domingo had con- 
quered independence, and knocked for admission 
to the Union of the United States. To receive 
her was a favorite measure of the President, but 
Coi.gress took an opposite view, and he was wiser 



MRS. GRANT. 369 

than Andrew Johnson in his dealings with that 
august body. 

When the Spaniards, in their vigilance to guard 
their fairest jewel, fired upon the United States flag 
on the high seas, before any overt act had been com- 
mitted bv the fillibusters on board the " Viro'inius," the 
Executive carried a high hand and a resolute spirit. 
Spain was compelled to make an apology and restore 
the vessel. 

Iron had forged a path from ocean to ocean, 
and the dream of the fifteenth century was fulfilled 
by finding a short route to India. 

With no foreign inbroglio, an abandonment of the 
ironclad oath, and an amnesty to all save one, an era 
of peace and prosperity seemed to dawn upon the 
country so recently rent in pieces and baptized with 
blood. When one city fell in cinders, the South as 
well as the North stretched forth a helping hand ; 
surely, the wounds are all cicatrized and it is to be 
hoped the next generation will see no scar. 

The social life of the White House went gayly on. 
Mrs. Grant was not one to like the mansion for its 
associations with the historic past — would have pre- 
ferred a new, modern palace, but she enjoyed her 
position as first lady and if not *' to the manner born," 
had too much sense of her own importance to allow 
any patronage. 

Coming after Mrs. Lincoln and the daughters of 



370 MRS. GRANT. 

Johnson, who Hved under a cloud, and played their 
roles from duty rather than inclination, she formed a 
pleasing contrast, and the best society of the capital 
flocked to her receptions, where she introduced the 
pretty custom that still prevails, of surrounding her- 
self with ladies of distinction to assist in doing the 
honors. 

The state dining-room was frequently opened and 
everything was conducted in a liberal style. It is 
said that she entertained more distinguished guests 
than any who had preceded her. 

Among all the nations of Europe, Russia had been 
the most friendly during the Rebellion, but unfor- 
tunately, when the czar's son, the Duke Alexis, came 
to our shores, there was an unpleasantness with the 
Russian minister, and as he was not included in 
the proffered hospitalities of the Executive Man- 
sion, the grand duke declined to receive them. 
The czar thought it was not good treatment, 
and said so plainly to the American ambassador at 
his court, 

Victoria's son, Prince Arthur, came, and he too 
thought proper attention to his royal highness was 
wanting on the part of the Executive. The beard- 
less boy of nineteen expected a man representing the 
majesty of the United States, and old enough to be 
his father, to return one of his visits. The President 
invited him to a dinner and went to a ball given in 



MRS. GRANT. 3/1 

his honor, and thought that it was not befitting his 
dignity to do more. 

Among the royal guests came Dom Pedro and 
Donna Teresa, who found no cause for complaint ; 
perhaps, because the blood of Braganza is regener- 
ated on American soil, and not so deeply imbued 
with divine rights as that of European princes. 

If there were any one thing in Grant's adminis- 
tration for which sober-minded men honored him, it 
was his veto of the inflation bill. It was such a 
party measure that his action was unexpected and 
unhoped for. He was a man of quick decision, but 
to do or not to do this thing, hung in the balance for 
nine days and robbed him of sleep. Senator Ed- 
munds came at the last moment, ready to go on his 
knees, if need were, but was made happy by being 
told that the President had decided without regard 
to party, and a veto was ready. 

The eldest son of the President was a cadet at 
West Point. 

Miss Nellie, the only daughter, was placed at a 
boarding-school ; but life at home with her saddle- 
horse, her pony carriage, and a plan of conducting 
affairs very much as she pleased, was much more to 
her taste, and she usually managed to enjoy it. She 
was too sweet and natural to be spoiled, and became 
a universal favorite. 

Four comparatively quiet years rolled by, and there 



3/2 



MRS. GRANT. 



was to be another election. The President was not 
as popular as he had been ; there were outspoken 
charges of incompetency and nepotism, but he was 
unanimously nominated, and elected by a large major- 
ity. Once more there was a grand inauguration. It 
fell upon one of the coldest days ever known in 
Washington. The breath of the musicians con- 
densed in the valves of their instruments. The 
President rode in his open barouche, drawn by four 
bay horses. The cadets from West Point were 
privileged to come and witness the honors lavished 
upon one who had risen from their ranks. A dis- 
tinguished feature of the procession was the First 
Troop of Philadelphia City cavalry, carrying its 
historic flag bearing thirteen stripes, presented in 

1778. 
There was no heating apparatus prepared for the 

hall of the inaugural ball, and the ladies danced in 

their wraps and the gentlemen in their overcoats ; 

the ices and drinks were frozen solid. 

Speculation had been rife for months. Thoughtful 
business men had dimly dreaded a crash, realizing 
that the apparent prosperity was only seeming. 

It was on the principle expressed by Lincoln's 
homely saying, ** never swap horses in the middle of 
a stream," that the Republican candidate had been 
elected. In the summer came what bears the name 
of "the panic of 1873," as memorable as that of 



MRS. GRANT. 373 

1837. All at once the corruption of the administra- 
tion was unveiled. The details of whiskey rings, 
frauds, steals, and swindles, coming one after another 
appalled the nation. The President and his family 
had accepted so many gifts, that Sumner stamped it 
as "the epoch of gift enterprises." 

It was at this time that Conkling won his imperish- 
able renown of being an honest man. So many of his 
peers had gone down in the Credit Mobilier Com- 
pany, that he seemed to rise to a colossal height, to 
whom the nation were expected to make obeisance, 
as if honesty were an abnormal trait among Ameri- 
cans. It would indeed have been a bold man to 
have asked official action for private gain of Roscoe 
Conkling. 

The President had had no political training, and 
was not given to taking advice from those who had. 
He was exonerated from all personal complicity in 
the frauds, but the dishonor reflected upon the 
administration. Never was there a time when so 
many prominent men were tried for bribery. The 
President boldly said : " Let no guilty man escape," 
and never had one in his station so many personal 
friends behind the bars. He had, unfortunately, 
surrounded himself with men, wdio, if they w^ere born 
honest, were as weak as Eve, and fell under the first 
temptation. 

England and the Indians generally loom up with 



374 MRS. GRANT. 

a difficulty in every administration, and Grant's 
formed no exception to the rule. 

The Modocs played a treacherous game in Oregon, 
and the Sioux, exasperated by being driven from their 
reservations by the white man's greed for gold, 
donned the war-paint and began their futile struggle 
for their rights. They were routed, punished, and 
scattered, as usual ; but the nation had to mourn the 
loss of the heroic Custer and his brave band. 

The centennial observances made the era memo- 
rable. The one at Philadelphia, to celebrate the 
hundredth anniversary of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, brought crowds from all parts of the 
Union, and the products of all lands to our shores. 

It gave us an impetus in decorations and the arts, 
which we have never lost. 

Grant has been called the regenerator of the 
national capital. Immense sums were wisely spent. 
The city was paved, and the mud and dust for which 
it was noted are things of the past, and since, it has 
been classed among the most beautiful cities in the 
world. 

General Grant wished for more power than he had 
been willing to accord to Johnson. If he said to a 
cabinet minister, "Go," he expected him to go, and 
didn't like to turn to Congress and say, '' by your 
leave." 

Mrs. Grant was not a woman to offensively meddle 



MRS. GRANT. 375 

in official affairs, nor was the general a man to allow 
it. It was naturally a matter of pride to have her 
family provided with soft places by her husband, 
who had leaned on them in the early married days, 
and had been looked upon as a failure. She gave a 
gay wedding to Miss Piatt, who married General 
Russel Hastings. 

Miss Nelly was verging toward womanhood and 
was a cause of some anxiety. She was quite be- 
witching, and beardless boys flocked admiringly 
about her. Perhaps Mrs. Grant had in mind her 
own early heart-giving, and feared that this daughter 
might give hers, but not so wisely. A friend was 
going to Europe, and it was planned that she should 
take this school girl, or, rather, girl who wouldn't go 
to school, just to keep her out of harm's way. 

The American minister to St. James's, knowing 
what was exacted when the royal children went out 
of the kingdom, determined that due honor should 
be accorded to the daughter of the man who rep- 
resented the majesty of his own country. He 
informed the Minister for Foreign Affairs of her 
arrival, and he informed the Queen. Victoria was 
gracious, and sent an invitation for " Miss Grant and 
the lady who accompanied her " to pay a visit at 
Buckingham Palace. 

There were garden parties, and all kinds of social 
gayeties among the nobility, where Miss Nelly was 



3/6 MRS. GRANT. 

treated as if she were an American princess. Had 
she not been received by the Queen at a private 
audience ! If she were not versed in conventional 
forms, her winsome ways, and sweet, unaffected 
manners stood her in better stead, and she was much 
admired. 

Miss Nelly was an excellent sailor, knew nothing 
of nial de mcr, while her chaperon on the return 
voyage was so grievously afflicted with it that she 
was constantly confined to her stateroom, the only 
time her services were seriously needed by her 
charge. 

The mother's plan has signally failed. An Eng- 
lish lover paid his suit, and Miss Nelly did not say 
him nay. Mr. Algernon Sartoris was the second 
son of Mr. Sartoris, who married one of the tal- 
ented Kemble family ; he had no property or busi- 
ness prospects. The practical father of Miss Nelly 
would listen to no such love tale as that, and the 
voune gentleman was dismissed. A few months 
later, his elder brother died. The English lover 
was now the heir, and with bolder mien he came 
again and stood before the President, and asked to 
wed sweet Nelly Grant. The father was not pleased, 
but the girl's heart had gone into this man's keeping, 
and it would be tyranny to refuse consent. 

In May, 1874, there was a braw wedding at the 
White House ; the bride was arrayed in white silk, 



MRS. GRANT. 37/ 

trimmed with almost priceless lace, the gift of her 
father. 

" Marry in May, 
Rue it ahvay." 

If report speak truly, Mrs. Sartoris has a pleas- 
ant home, but instead of being a cherished wife, is 
rather the beloved daughter-in-law of an old man. 
Mr. Algernon Sartoris spends most of his time 
away from home, and his infrequent visits are 
hardly a source of pleasure to his family. 

Mrs. Sartoris is the mother of three children, — has 
grown stouter and coarser, and looks older than her 
years, but has never lost her talent of winning the 
hearts of those with whom she comes in contact. 

The cadet at West Point had graduated, and after 
Mrs. Sartoris left, married Miss Honorc of Chicago, 
and became an inmate of the Executive Mansion ; 
in due time the family party was made up of three 
generations. 

The second term was drawing to a close, and 
there was even the talk of a third, but the prestige 
of the President was gone ; he declined to have his 
name used, and it was said that if the party were 
to remain in power, there must be a new standard- 
bearer. 

Mrs. Grant loved place and power, and was too 
much imbued with a sense of her husband's great- 
ness and importance to fear defeat. She could 



378 MRS. GRANT. 

hardly forgive him for having, unknown to her, 
refused to be a candidate. 

The frauds and corruptions developed in the ad- 
ministration told heavily against the Republican 
party, and the election was a hotly contested one, 
and when it was over, it was a disputed one. For 
a time, the aspect of affairs looked very critical ; 
looked as if what the grinding rocks of Scylla had 
spared, the whirlpool of Charybdis would swallow. 

When Congress assembled, none knew whom to 
call president-elect. An electoral commission was 
devised to examine the returns, and determine the 
result, which was in favor of the Republican candi- 
date, Mr. Hayes. The Democrats felt that fraud 
had been practised, and were naturally outraged. 
Mr. Tilden, their nominee, was urged to stand for 
his rights, and the party would have endorsed him, 
but he was too much of a patriot to fan the flames 
of a hardly quenched civil war for his personal ag- 
grandizement or party power. General Grant took 
no active part until the decision was announced. 
It brought the man into his natural element. If 
there were to be a conflict, he made ready to meet 
it. There was no offensive display of power, but 
there was a masterly skill in the arrangement of 
affairs which ensured a peaceful compliance with 
the laws. 

Let none ever doubt the strength of the warp and 



MRS. GRANT. 3/9 

the woof of our constitutional government. An ex- 
president of the French republic said other gov- 
ernments might have coped with civil war and 
lived, but none but the American could have borne 
the strain of a disputed election treading upon the 
heels of the war. The decision of the electoral 
commission was given only three days before the 
day of the inauguration. 

Mr. and Mrs. Hayes came to the capital on the 
second ; General Grant not only courteously invited 
them to dine at the Executive Mansion on the third, 
but to name the guests they would like to meet. 
The fourth came on Sunday, and as Mr. Hayes had 
scruples about being sworn in on that day, the 
general made arrangements that he should take 
the oath that Saturday evening, which was quietly 
done in the Red Room, without the knowledge of 
the other guests. 

Mrs. Grant's feelings were so strong that she 
would not witness the inauguration of the man who 
displaced her husband, yet she did the unusual but 
graceful thing of remaining to receive her successor. 
A handsome entertainment was laid and a party of 
friends stood ready to welcome and congratulate the 
inaugural company. The mansion was left in per- 
fect order ; thoughtfulness had even gone so far as 
to provide a clay's supply for the table. 

As travelling was General Grant's favorite amuse- 



380 MRS. GRANT. 

ment, he determined, upon being freed from the 
cares of office, to make a journey round the world. 
Preparations began at once, and in May he sailed, 
accompanied by Mrs. Grant and their youngest son, 
Jesse. Ovations and honors such as he received at 
home awaited him on English soil. Even royalties 
deigned to entertain him, and the newspaper accounts 
of their manner of doing it amused his countrymen. 
The Prince and Princess of Wales who were enter- 
taining the Emperor and Empress of Brazil, led 
royalty in dining the Amdrican chieftain. A bidden 
guest is treated with honor even in Arab tents, but 
among the Guelph aristocracy they have a code of 
their own. If we Americans were to take a course 
of study on the divine right of kings, we should 
never graduate with honors. The Prince and Prin- 
cess tendered no reception to their guests upon their 
arrival ; no seats were offered. As the dinner hour 
approached, the company were asked to range them- 
selves, men on one side of the room, and women 
on the other, Quaker meeting style in America. 
Between these lines walked their Royal Highnesses, 
mated with their imperial guests. Donna Teresa, 
once politely entertained by Mrs. Grant, put Ameri- 
can good manners before Guelph etiquette, and 
stopped and greeted Mrs. Grant, but there was no 
recognition from the Prince, upon whose arm she 
leaned. Royalty conversed with royalty, titled 



MRS. GRANT. 38 1 

aristocracy with titled aristocracy ; if those below 
that rank could find amusement well and good ; if 
not, the same. The dinner over, the hostess dis- 
appeared with Her Imperial Majesty. As the Gen- 
eral and Mrs. Grant were in the anteroom, about to 
don their wraps, a servant stepped up and said the 
Princess would like to bid Mrs. Grant good-night ; 
she came forward and graciously did it. 

Commend us to those Hanoverian Guelphs for 
bad manners. Alas that the sweet Danish princess 
should have imbibed them ! 

The next royal dinner offered was by the Queen 
herself at Windsor, which included an invitation to 
pass the night. If the visit were not conducted 
according to the highest code of American polite- 
ness, there was none of the ill-breeding shown in the 
household of the Prince. 

The Queen's carriages awaited the guests at the 
station. Arriving at the castle, they were informed 
that the Queen was out driving. It looked as if 
their former experiences were to be repeated. How- 
ever, when Her Majesty did come, she was very 
gracious, greeted and conversed with each in the 
kindest manner, and it is said when Victoria means 
to be kind, she has a winning smile and a royal 
grace of manner which is irresistible. At dinner. 
General Grant was asked to take in one of her 
dausfhters and he sat but two removes from the 



382 MRS. GRANT. 

Queen. No place of honor was accorded Mrs. 
Grant. 

A little difficulty arose, which nearly sent the 
party dinnerless back to London. Master Jesse 
was told that he was not to dine with the Queen, 
but in another room, with the ladies and gentlemen 
of the household ; he insisted that he would dine 
with his hostess or not dine at Windsor at all. The 
matter was referred to Her Majesty, who with tact 
and good sense admitted the boy to her table. 
There is an apology for the seeming discourtesy 
of the Queen. Master Jesse had not been included 
in the invitation to his parents, but they had allowed 
a request to be made that he might be added to the 
party, which was hardly good form. The Queen had 
graciously responded with a card of invitation, and 
probably thought that the table which was some- 
times graced by the presence of the premier was not 
unsuitable for this temporary scion of the White 
House. 

The General and Mrs. Grant wandered over 
Europe, Asia, and Africa, and at every court out 
of England, were treated according to the rules of 
good breeding established throughout the world. 

After more than a two years' absence, the family 
returned to America, where all the old enthusiasm 
revived for the hero of Appomattox. His friends 
suggested that he should be a candidate for a third 



MRS. GRANT. 383 

presidential term. The idea of again wielding the 
power of the high position was very attractive to 
him, and still more so to Mrs. Grant, who had 
yielded it up so reluctantly. Both felt themselves 
better fitted by their foreign travel to act their parts. 
The nomination of 1880 was more fiercely contested 
than elections usually are. So tenacious were his 
friends, a permanent division of the party was feared ; 
they stood with a solid front that neither broke rank 
nor wavered, but the adverse side won, with Garfield 
to lead them on to victory. The result was very 
mortifying to General and Mrs. Grant, and the 
disappointment keen. 

If an administration be to be used for the benefit 
of poor relations and personal friends, the president 
in power naturally chooses tha.t they shall at least be 
his own. The ex-president had only done what he 
said was his duty in placing Mr. Hayes in power, 
yet he thought himself ill-used in not being allowed 
to control a goodly amount of patronage, and the 
relations of the two soon became strained. It was 
the same with Garfield; he had given efficient help, 
used his influence in the campaign, and deemed it 
ingratitude that a man should be called into the 
cabinet of whom he disapproved. Arthur had been 
raised to power by the dastardly deed of Guiteau, 
but the quondam chief went so far beyond the 
bounds of delicacy in asking places for his followers 



384 MRS. GRANT. 

and relatives that the President was forced to assert 
himself. Like Garfield, he had committed the enor- 
mity of placing in his Cabinet a man who had 
opposed the third term, and added to the flagrancy 
by passing over a man not only recommended by 
General Grant, but his personal friend. 

The third term proving a failure, the General 
settled in New York, and, by the advice of one of 
his sons, invested all his capital in the bank of Ward 
and Fish, which was making large returns. His 
little fortune grew and doubled, and soon he counted 
himself a millionaire. He could draw checks at will, 
used his power generously, and no man ever enjoyed 
it more. Ease, prosperity, and enjoyment seemed 
to be but the proper crown for his great deeds. 

On Christmas Eve, 1883, an era of suffering began 
and a train of misfortunes followed which ended at 
Mount McGregor in the summer of 1885. He fell 
upon the ice at his own door and ruptured a muscle 
in his thigh, which confined him to his bed for 
weeks — the suffering intensified by a sharp attack 
of pleurisy — and crippled him for the rest of 
his life. 

In the spring there were suggestions of presenting 
his namic in the coming campaign, but the soreness 
of the mortification of 1880, kept him silent. If the 
party had placed his name at the head of their ticket 
and elected him, he would gladly have served, but 



MRS. GRANT. 385 

no persuasion could induce him to declare himself a 
candidate. 

In May, his financial difficulties came, and tempo- 
rarily clouded his honor, which put him out of the 
race. The firm with which he was connected, whose 
name had been changed to that of Grant and Ward, 
stopped payment. Hobbling into his office one 
morning on crutches, his son, Ulysses, stepped for- 
ward, saying: "Father, you had better go home. 
The bank has failed." 

Two days before, without security, Mr. Wm. H. 
Vanderbilt had made him a temporary loan of one 
hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which he, in 
good faith, had entrusted to his faithless partner. 
Three days before, his youngest son, by his advice, 
had placed eighty thousand, his all, in the bank. 
Even Mrs. Sartoris had invested her pin money, and 
several relatives the savings of a lifetime. It is not 
strange that his cheek blanched, but he remained 
calm and faced this accumulation of losses like a 
man ; but worse was to come. His integrity was 
called in question. He who had been weighted with 
honors in all lands, was stamped as a defaulter. 
Then the iron entered his soul, and the strong man 
bowed in agony. 

Mr. Vanderbilt behaved with princely generosity, 
and would have made the loan a gift to Mrs. Grant. 
She, with proper pride, and with a heart overflowing 



386 MRS. GRANT. 

with gratitude, wrote that she could not and would 
not accept it. 

People, grateful for the services of her husband, 
had given her a house, and to the general the in- 
come of a Trust Fund of two hundred and fifty 
thousand dollars ; but with his inaptitude for keep- 
ing money, which exceeded that of earning it in a 
business w^ay, the task of supplying him seemed as 
hopeless as filling a fountain from a sieve ; the man 
himself wearied of the efforts made in his behalf, and 
forbade further ones. 

The house and its valuable contents, including the 
swords and presents which had been lavished upon 
him at home and in foreign lands, were made over to 
Mr. Vanderbilt. 

No business could be entered upon by himself or 
sons until they were released from their liabilities. 
The editors of the Ccntnry Magazine offered him 
handsome remuneration for some articles upon the 
w^ar. He was averse to literary work, but honest 
independence was a spur to effort, and he made it. 

American people never tire of the stories of Shiloh, 
Vicksburg, and the Wilderness Campaign, and when 
the editors of the Century presented them direct 
from the hand of the great general himself, the 
magazine became so remunerative that they, with 
rare generosity, paid a sum far beyond the stipulated 
price. 



I 



MRS. GRANT. T^Sj 

This success suggested the writing of his " Me- 
moirs," and several prominent publishers made him 
offers. He had no sooner settled to his work than 
shooting pains in the throat, slightly felt in the 
summer, painfully increased. Mrs. Grant's anxiety 
and urgency induced him to consult a physician, and 
the terrible truth was expressed in the word, cancer, 
which told of a death warrant to be shortly served. 
His last days were fearfully pathetic, and touched 
the deeper feelings of his countrymen. 

His name and fame under a cloud, prostrated by a 
mortal illness, entailing sleepless nights and fearful 
suffering, he spent his days writing the story of his 
life, modestly (one must read it to realize how mod- 
destly) telling of his great deeds in a graphic way, 
and his only incentive was the all-absorbing love he 
bore his wife, children, and grandchildren. Surely, 
the greatness of the past was overshadowed by the 
heroism of his last days. 

The gloom of that trying period was lightened by 
the sympathy expressed in every section of the 
country. 

There was a legal examination of the affairs of the 
suspended bank, which swept away the film that had 
tarnished the general's honor. It was made clear to 
all the world that he had been deceived — was never 
the deceiver. 

Arthur's last official act was to sign a bill to place 



388 MRS. GRANT. 

him on the retired list in the army, and Cleveland's 
first, after forming his cabinet, to sign his commis- 
sion. This so revived his spirits that death itself 
seemed to recede. He finished his " Personal Me- 
moirs," and thanked God that he had lived to see 
"harmony and good feeling between the nations." 

He was spared the acute agonies feared by his 
physicians, and passed quietly away on the twenty- 
third of July, surrounded by his wife and children. 

Mrs. Grant showed uncommon fortitude through- 
out his entire illness, put aside her grief, and was 
cheerful for his sake ; even in the dying hour she 
controlled herself, held his hand and looked lovingly 
into his eyes until they were closed in death. 

The " Memoirs " have been even more successful 
than was anticipated, and the entire family are placed 
in easy circumstances by the almost superhuman 
work of the great general in his mortal illness. 

Mrs. Grant is one of the four living widows of ex- 
presidents, and receives a government pension of five 
thousand dollars. 



MRS. HAYES. 

Miss- Lucy Webb was born at Chillicothe, Ohio, 
when it was the capital of the state. Her father and 
grandfather were North Carolinians — were born 
and bred in the midst of slavery, and inherited slaves. 

Removing into a free state, they at once imbibed 
free state principles. At a serious cost they became 
Abolitionists, years before the abolition party reared 
its head. 

In 1833, the cholera raged throughout the western 
country, and Dr. James Webb, father of Miss Lucy, 
fell a victim to it at Lexington, where he had gone to 
make legal arrangements for freeing his own and his 
father's negroes. The maternal grandparents were 
of good Puritan stock. 

Mrs. James Webb was left with a son and a 
daughter, the former fitted and about to enter Wes- 
leyan University. In her fresh grief she felt that 
if she were to be parted from her only son, she would 
be doubly widowed. Chillicothe offered no special 
advantages for her daughter, and it was arranged that 
the family should remove to the town of Delaware, 
the seat of the university. Miss Lucy studied with 
her brother, and recited to the college professors. 

389 



390 MRS. HAYES. 

When he graduated and entered a medical school, 
she entered the Wesleyan Female College at Cincin- 
nati, the first ever chartered for girls. Her vaca- 
tions were spent with her mother at Delaware. 

In the -town, and not far from Mrs. Webb, lived 
another widjw, who also had one son and one 
daughter. Her husband had died of malarial bilious 
fever, which is as deadly and speedy in its work as 
cholera. Migrating from Vermont in her early 
married days, she seemed an old settler in the town, 
which was the birthplace of her boy. 

She had brought from the Green Mountains a 
young brother, Sardis Birchard, who had amassed a 
fortune and never married. He requited her early 
care by his devotion to her and her children ; one 
son, her elder one, had been drowned while skating. 

The uncle's pride and affection centred upon the 
remaining nephew ; his interest in him was as active 
and engrossing as that of a father, and he pleased his 
fancy by picturing a great career for the boy, but 
even his fond fancy fell short of the reality. To be 
sure, his mother had once prophesied that he would 
rise to the presidency — but it was a jesting remark, 
made to a neighbor who had said that the feeble, 
wailing baby with the big head could not live, or 
live only to suffer. 

The boy, guided by his uncle, went to New Eng- 
land to be tutored for college, and a year later, 



MRS. HAYES. 39 1 

entered Kenyon College, Ohio. Upon graduation, 
he returned to New England and went through the 
Harvard Law School, at Cambridge. 

He opened an office at Fremont, and lived in the 
house of his uncle. He showed no special ability ; 
men said, if he were a poor boy, and dependent on his 
own earnings, he would make his mark ; but life 
was too easy. 

It chanced that Miss Webb and this new-fledged 
lawyer, Rutherford Birchard Hayes, spent a summer 
vacation at Delaware, and met for the first time. He 
was a very quiet, self-contained man, — florid, blue- 
eyed, and sandy-haired, what might be called the 
pure Anglo-Saxon type. 

She was vivacious, dark-eyed, with a broad brow 
and handsome chin. In repose, she simply looked 
very intelligent, but engage her in conversation and 
the radiant smiles which constantly flitted and lighted 
her face, disclosing fine teeth, made her beautiful. 

Mr. Hayes found a fascination in watching her. 
He wished to provoke those smiles, and asked for an 
introduction. He had not thought of love, but the 
refined, sprightly girl was a sort of inspiration to him 
— life seemed to have more meaning, and his ambi- 
tion was roused to do something worthy of a man. 

Upon the return to Cincinnati, he became a fre- 
quent visitor at the Friday evening receptions allowed 
the young ladies, in the college parlors, and in his 



392 MRS. HAYES. 

eyes, no girl possessed the attractions and beauty of 
Miss Lucy ; soon he won a promise that she would 
be his wife. 

Hitherto, his uncle Birchard had held a silver 
spoon to his mouth, but now the spirit of indepen- 
dence awoke. He would fashion a spoon for this 
girl in which there should be no silver but that 
earned by his own industry. Under this new inspi- 
ration he applied himself to the law, and developed 
those powers of which his fond uncle had so long- 
boasted. 

It was the last decade before the Civil War, and 
at no time was the business of the country so 
prosperous, or money making so easy. 

Miss Webb became a member of the Methodist 
Episcopal church, and her religious zeal acted upon 
her lover. He won an honored name among the 
poor ; fugitive slaves sought him without fear, and 
found a ready advocate. He had spent the two 
happiest years of his life in association with Miss 
Webb, and his business prospects entitled him to 
ask her to redeem her promise. Professor L. D. 
McCabe, of the Wesleyan University, performed the 
marriage ceremony. The bride's only attendant was 
Mr. Hayes's little niece, eight years old, who held 
her hand through the service. 

Mr. Hayes was at the zenith of his profession ; 
children were born, and wealth, honors, and domestic 



MRS. HAYES. 393 

happiness seemed to stamp his life with permanent 
comfort, wlien "the shot that was heard around the 
world" was fired at Sumter. 

From the day that South Carolina passed the 
ordinance of secession, Mr. Hayes rather wished that 
war might come, and that the vexed question which 
so often disturbed the harmony of the Union might 
be settled. He foresaw a long and bloody contest, 
and pledged himself to serve to the end. 

With the rank of major, he enlisted in the 
Twenty-third Ohio Volunteers, which did such val- 
iant service and had so bloody a record at South 
Mountain. Major Hayes had become colonel, and 
after being severely wounded in his arm, led the 
Twenty-third in one of the terrible charges up the 
heights. The flag hung in rags, but it never went 
down, though there were but one hundred men left 
to rally round it, and their colonel was carried from 
the field, fainting from the loss of blood. 

In her home at Cincinnati, Mrs. Hayes read the 
name of her husband in the list of the wounded ; 
with no clue to guide her, save that he went down 
at South Mountain, she hastened to search for him. 
The wounded were scattered over all that region ; 
those who could be moved were sent a long dis- 
tance away. Every church, house, barn, or shed, 
were full. Mrs. Hayes had a weary search for 
six — what seemed endless, days — often obliged to 



394 MRS. HAYES. 

retrace her steps. Sick at heart, she went through 
house after house, scanning the ghastly faces of the 
wounded, before she ascended a flight of rickety 
stairs in a little, old, dilapidated, two-story brick 
building, where lay the gallant colonel of the Twenty- 
third Ohio Volunteers. 

Fortunatel}^ he was attended by Mrs. Hayes's 
brother, who determined to make an attempt to save 
his arm, which had been pronounced impossible, and 
he had himself . requested amputation. Ohio sur- 
geons, who were looking up and caring for the 
wounded of their state, came in just after the ar- 
rival of Mrs. Hayes. The colonel, suffering with 
pain, threatened with mortification, gave them for 
parting words : " Tell Governor Tod that I'll be on 
hand again shortly." 

When he returned to active duty, he held the 
rank of brigadier-general, and served in the Shenan- 
doah Valley, saving the supply train when Sheridan 
made his twenty miles ride. He lay bruised from a 
fall, when that gallant officer dashed up upon his 
black horse, flecked with foam, shouting to the 
routed troops: "Turn about, boys — we are going 
the other way — we are going to have a good thing 
on them now, boys ! " The " good thing " is immor- 
talized in the annals of the war. 

Mrs. Hayes, who spent two summers and one 
winter in camp, endeared herself to the regiment 



MRS. HAYES. 395 

by her attentions to the ill and the wounded. The 
general laughs, and says she won favor by mending 
an old blouse for a half-witted fellow. His comrades 
told him that a woman had come to do the mending 
for the soldiers, and was lodged at the general's 
headquarters. In good faith he carried her his tat- 
tered garment. Mrs. Hayes comprehended the sit- 
uation in a moment, and mended the blouse as if 
it were her business, determined to save the fellow 
from beinof the butt of the regiment. The men were 
somewhat ashamed, but declared the general's wife 
was "game," and gave her the name of "Mother of 
the Regiment." 

In 1864, General Hayes was nominated for Con- 
gress, and a politician wrote, urging him to come 
and canvass the state. " Any man who would leave 
the army to electioneer for Congress ought to be 
scalped," was his answer. " Hayes is stumping the 
Shenandoah Valley," was placed on the banner of 
the party, and roused a wild enthusiasm. He was 
elected but refused to resign. To a friend who 
wished him to come and share his apartments, he 
wrote : " I shall never come to Washington until I 
can come by the way of Richmond." In the winter 
of 1865 he entered Congress, and resigned in 1867, 
having been chosen Governor of Ohio. In 1874, his 
uncle, Sardis Birchard, died, leaving him heir to his 
large estate and banking business. 



396 MRS. HAYES. 

In the Republican Convention at Cincinnati in 
1876, Mr. Hayes was nominated for the presidency. 
Though he was no party to it, it is a little singular 
that fraud was attached both to his nomination and 
election. Mr. Blaine was expected to be the win- 
ning candidate. The Sunday previous to the Con- 
vention, a sudden illness, induced by excitement and 
extreme heat, prostrated him on his way to church. 
This slight attack, magnified by his opponents, 
worked unfavorably, and, added to the false state- 
ment, crowded him from the place. For hours the 
voting had gone on and the " Plumed Knight " was 
gaining at every ballot, but the long summer's day 
was waning and the tellers called for the lighting of 
the gas. "The building is not supplied with gas," 
spake a prominent citizen, with bold effrontery. In 
the hubbub the Convention adjourned. The next 
morning the tide for Mr. Blaine had ebbed, and Mr. 
Hayes received the nomination. 

The first returns in November gave the election 
to Mr. Tilden ; soon fraud was charged. An Elec- 
toral Commission, chosen to decide the matter, gave 
a report in favor of Mr. Hayes. Those who asserted 
there was fraud were strengthened in their belief 
by the refusal of the party to allow Conkling, the 
Colossus of honesty, on the Commission, and boldly 
declared that there had been a cunningly devised 
plan for declaring Mr. Hayes legally elected, con- 



MRS. HAYES. 39/ 

trary to the face of the returns. Rather than 
abet fraud, Conkling would have been drawn in 
pieces. 

Governor Hayes, with his family, left Columbus 
on the first of March, having been notified by his 
friends that the Electoral Commission would decide 
in his favor. The certified result was telegraphed 
and received on the train. 

Arriving in Washington in a pouring rain, they 
were met by Senator Sherman and driven to his 
house. The city was crowded with people and there 
was a fine procession on the fifth, but owing to the 
shortness of the time there was less display than 
usual, and no inaugural ball. The President tend- 
ered his carriage, drawn by four horses, and rode to 
the Capitol with the President elect. Mrs. Grant, 
with some friends, received the family, and she pre- 
sided over the handsome lunch she had prepared for 
them. 

Mrs. Hayes was no pai'verm — was versed in the 
social etiquette of the best society, and frankly 
acknowledged her pleasure in becoming the mistress 
of the Executive Mansion. Unlike Mrs. Grant, she 
was charmed with the house ; every room had its 
history. " No matter what they build, they will 
never build any more rooms like these," she would 
say, as she took her friends over it. Her own 
hus'band had already enacted a strange scene in 



398 MRS. HAYES. 

the Red Room, secretly taking the oath of office 
before the Chief Justice, with only herself. General 
Grant, and his son for witnesses, taken it, lest a 
revolution might follow the uncertainties of his 
election. 

Mrs. Hayes was an element in the administration, 
and placed herself beside her husband in his official 
rank, yet outside interference she met with dignity 
and rebuke. To one woman, who came with sug- 
gestions as to the presidential housekeeping, she 
said : " Madam, it is my husband, not myself, who is 
President. I think that a man who is capable of 
filling so important a position, as I believe my 
husband to be, is quite competent to establish 
such rules as will obtain respect in his house, with- 
out calling on members of other households. T 
would not offend you and I would not offend Mr. 
Hayes, who knows what is due to his position, his 
family, and himself, without any interference of 
others, directly or through his wife." 

This was very dignified, but no woman in the 
White House ever exercised such power over public 
affairs and such rigidity in domestic affairs. She 
not only believed in and practised total abstinence 
from all intoxicating drinks, but she determined 
that all who came within the doors of the national 
mansion should practise, whether they believed 
or no. 



MRS. HAVES. 399 

The Secretary of State declared it was not seemly 
to invite the diplomatic corps to their annual dinner 
and serve no wines ; he refused to consent to it. 
Mrs. Hayes would not yield the point, and as usual 
in such extreme cases, a plan was made to circum- 
vent her. Oranges were prepared, filled with deli- 
cious frozen punch. Mrs. Hayes and the uninitiated 
wondered why this fruit was preferred above all 
other. Unknown to her, Roman punch was served 
at every State dinner, the steward duly instructed 
just how to temper the potency for each guest. 
Those who partook, laughingly called it the *' Life 
Saving Station." 

The name of Mrs. Hayes was trumpeted over the 
land as one who, sitting in the highest place, had set 
a noble example to the world. By her devotees, she 
was even compared to the Marys who stood beside 
the cross, though one fails to see the resemblance 
between those sorrowful women and the social, pros- 
perous, radiant Mrs. Hayes. Perhaps Mrs. Cleve- 
land, quietly drinking her glass of ApoUinaris water, 
has quite as potent an influence for good, and men 
would scorn to indulge in excess or do an underhand 
thing in her gracious presence. 

No one doubted the sincerity and purity of Mrs. 
Hayes's motives, but she was a devout follower of a 
sect who frown upon what are usually deemed inno- 
cent amusements. The billiard table was removed 



400 MRS. HAYES. 

from the house at her bidding; did her husband plan 
a social game of eards in his private room, there sat 
h"is lady, more entertaining and winsome than ever, 
full of interest in the domestic affairs of each guest. 
Once a gentleman" ventured to remark that he was 
afraid that the party were detaining her from ladies, 
and the pleasant duties of her station. Ah, no* 
indeed ! This was the hour with her husband and 
any of his intimate friends who happened to drop 
in. The President yawned and the guests with- 
drevv^ with the sweetest '* parting benedictions " from 
Mrs. Hayes. The next day Mr. Hayes said to his 
disappointed friends : " It's no use ; Lucy won't have 
it. She doesn't say a word, but you see how she 
works it. There won't be any kind of wickedness in 
the White House, if she can help it. There is a 
great deal of intriguing which she knows nothing 
about; but that doesn't count. When she strikes 
anything off color, she shoots it on the spot." 

A crusader, passing through a little Pennsylvania 
village, was told that the postmistress had so offen- 
sively meddled in the temperance movement, attack- 
ing every man, not teetotal, wht) came into the 
office, that the citizens had complained, and she was 
about to be superseded. The man, relying on a 
potent factor in the White House, boldly tele- 
graphed for a stay of proceedings. The story, as 
he told it was listened to by the Lady President. 



MRS. HAYES. 4OI 

Though the order for removal was made out at the 
Post Office Department, the next that the member 
of Congress from that district knew, the woman was 
reinstated. 

Mrs. Hayes was a devout woman, an attendant on 
prayer-meetings, and lifted her voice in the rousing 
hymns of the Methodist psalm book. Baseborn 
motives were not within the ken of her comprehen- 
sion, but office-holders and office-seekers would often 
play the hypocrite's part to ingratiate themselves in 
her favor ; once winning it, by teetotalism, prayers, 
and psalm singing, they feared neither President nor 
Secretary of State. 

One shameless fellow told his own story as if it 
were too good to keep. He knew he was not, nor 
did he deserve to be in good repute with his supe- 
riors, but did he imitate the zeal of John Wesley and 
preach the doctrine of Father Matthew, he might 
hope to retain his position. He went regularly to 
church and prayer-meetings where Mrs. Hayes 
attended; would at times look over the same book 
and sing psalms with her. It worked well and paid. 
Such a zealous, stainless young man without a home, 
was just \.\\^ protege iox Mrs. Hayes, and he had the 
entree of the White House. 

There was to be a little official junketing down the 
harbor in a government vessel. Cards were issued 
to those who were to make up the party. This 



402 MRS. HAYES 

young gentleman was designedly excluded. He 
called upon Mrs. Hayes, and casually mentioned 
that he had no card. " Oh come, and go with us, and 
a card will not matter," said the gracious lady. His 
•planned scheme was a success, but a success that 
worked his official ruin. Mrs. Hayes's guest was in- 
vited to the gentlemen's cabin, where champagne 
corks were popping, and stronger drinks flowed as 
freely as water. The gentleman completely lost his 
balance and in this condition appeared in the pres- 
ence of Mrs. Hayes. All pressure was removed, and 
a letter of dismissal lay among his official papers 
upon the following day. 

Mrs. Hayes was the mother of eight children, 
three of whom died in infancy. The eldest was an 
established lawyer in Ohio. The second son. Masters 
Webb, was private secretary to the President ; his 
coming of age was duly celebrated in the White 
House. A governess, granddaughter of the late 
Bishop Johns of Virginia, was employed for the 
younger children. 

Mrs. Hayes was always richly and becomingly 
dressed, wore no jewelry, but indulged in priceless 
laces. To a friend who once asked her why she did 
not conform to the fashion in the arrangement of her 
hair, she said that after she came to the White 
House, she sent for a hairdresser. He did his work 
and she consulted her glass; she appeared so ridicu- 



MRS. HAYES. 4O3 

lous to herself, she took it down and arranged it in 
her usual style. 

She made but few changes in the White House. 
The furniture, like the rooms, was more to her taste 
than anything new and modern. She ransacked the 
storerooms for discarded pieces, had them renovated, 
and if possible learned their age and history. From 
the appropriation of Congress, she purchased a state 
dinner service, illustrating the fauna and flora of 
the United States. 

The President and Mrs. Hayes had the honor of 
receiving the Grand Dukes Alexis and Constantine, 
sons of the Russian Czar. This time there was no 
imbroglio with the Russian minister, and the visit 
passed off smoothly. 

The most prominent entertainment given was the 
silver wedding of President and Mrs Hayes. Rev. 
Dr. McCabe was present, and renewed the marriage 
ceremony. The little girl of eight was in the prime 
of womanhood, and held the bride's hand as she had 
done a quarter of a century before. No presents was 
written on the wedding cards. Only the officers of 
the Ohio volunteer infantry, presumed to offer one — 
a silver plate, imbedded in a mat of black velvet, set 
in an ebony frame, given in memory of kindness to 
the wounded upon the field ; inscribed, " To the 
Mother of the Regiment, on thy silver troth." There 
was a representation in silver, of a log-cabin in the 



404 MRS. HAYES. 

valley of the Kanawha ; above it, the tattered and 
torn battle flags. 

In the beginning of his term, Mr. Hayes was 
described by the press as a well-built man of a 
stalwart frame, ruddy with health, kind blue 
eyes, full sandy beard in which there was mixed 
a few silver threads, and a smiling, well-shaped 
mouth. He was an even-teuipered, good-natured 
man, and his policy was to be conciliatory to all, 
especially to the South, where military rule sup- 
planted civil law. 

There had been rather universal carping over 
Grant's last administration, which had not filled the 
public records wdth a clean page, and Mr. Hayes 
thought his success depended upon an entire reversal 
of its measures, which was very offensive to the 
great soldier. 

Forming his own cabinet with the utmost secrecy, 
taking no one's counsel, he was miffed that his oppo. 
nents were selected to fill that of his successor. 
Judge Key, who had cast his fortunes with the South 
during the war, and was 'ruined, even beggared at the 
end, was chosen postmaster-general, the first among 
the disloyal so received. 

United States troops were withdrawn from the 
South by the President, because he honestly thought 
it was the only hope of making that section peaceful 
and prosperous, and of cenienting the bands about 



MRS. HAYES. 4O5 

the Union. His extreme conciliatory measures 
aroused the jealousy of the North. 

At first, he boldly denied that those who had man- 
ipulated Southern electoral votes had any claim on 
him ; that some afterward received office as compensa- 
tion was believed to have been owing to the pressure 
of the party, which he had not the backbone to resist. 

The administration had as usual to face difficulties 
with the Indians and with England. 

The Utes, robbed by the government agents, ancl 
pushed back by the miners at White River Agency, 
rose and were put down by United States troops. 
The vexed question of Northeastern Fisheries loomed 
up. This time England probably had a real griev- 
ance, for the commissioners assembled at Halifax 
awarded her five and one half million dollars. 

Government relations were pushed with China, 
which resulted in a treaty favorable to commerce, and 
another regulating Chinese immigration, much to 
the relief of the people on the Pacific slope. 

The last month of 1879 was made memorable by 
the resumption of specie payments, which seemed to 
lift the cloud which had hung over the financial 
affairs of the country for seventeen years. 

The calamities of this term were the railroad 
strikes of 1877, which necessitated calling out 
United States troops, and the Yellow fever scourge 
of 1878, which raged in the Mississippi Valley. 



406 MRS. HAYES. 

Mrs. Hayes last New Year's reception, which fell 
upon the coldest day ever known in Washington, 
was a very elegant affair ; surrounded by a bevy of 
young ladies, who throughout her reign, were ever 
flitting about the Executive Mansion, she looked 
more dignified and radiant than ever, in a dress of 
creamy white ribbed silk, trimmed with satin and 
pearl passementeries, her beautiful hair plainly 
knotted at the back and fastened by a silver comb. 

Mrs. Hayes's friends, to show their appreciation of 
the stand she had taken upon the temperance 
question, had a picture of her painted full length, 
to hang in the White House. The selected space 
did not suit the fancy or aesthetic taste of President 
Arthur and he moved it, which brought about his 
ears such abuse that one would have thought that 
he had profaned something holy. 

Mr. Hayes courteously accompanied his successor 
to the Capitol, and congratulated him upon his 
accession. Mrs. Hayes had kindly invited the ven- 
erable mother of Garfield to the White House on 
her arrival, and escorted her to the gallery of the 
Capitol to witness the inauguration of the son she 
called her baby. 

Mrs. Hayes lunched the party, as she had been 
lunched by Mrs. Grant at her own coming. She 
and the ex-President were driven to the house of 
Secretary Sherman, where they had been received 



MRS. HAYES. 40/ 

on that wet March morning, four years before, when 
the gloomy outlook threatened revolution and the 
taunting name of usurper had so clouded their 
triumph. 

In the evening, Mrs. Hayes went to the inaugural 
ball, arrayed in cream-colored satin, trimmed with 
ermine, and bade a dignified farewell to Washington 
society. The next morning the retiring family left 
the capital for Spiegel Grove, the name of the home 
in Fremont inherited from Sardis Birchard. Mr. 
Hayes is the only ex-president living ; though the 
silver threads have multiplied, he was scarcely aged 
by official cares, perhaps, because they were so ably 
shared by his efficient hel23mate. 



MRS. GARFIELD. 

Miss Lucretia Rudolph was the daughter of 
Zebulon Rudolph, whose uncle fought in the Revo- 
lution and afterwards went to France and fought in 
the wars of Napoleon, where he rose to a high rank. 
The family were poor, and there was nothing in the 
life of this girl to be noted, save that she showed 
uncommon intelligence and was eager to learn all 
that boys learned. 

Living in the days when it was uncommon for 
girls to engage in classical studies, she zealously 
entered upon them at Hiram, where James Abram 
Garfield was teacher. It does not appear that he 
neglected her mental culture, when we read that 
twenty years after she had sufficient erudition to fit 
her sons for college, but with the Latin and Greek, 
he mixed lessons upon love, which she diligently 
conned. 

If she had been a remarkable girl, the teacher had 
been a still more remarkable boy. He was the son 
of a widow, so poor that she worked in her own 
fields, split her own rails and built her own fences. 
Obliged as she was to do both a man's and a woman's 
work for the support of her little brood, she found 

408 



MRS. GARFIELD, 4O9 

time to teach them to read. As they grew older, 
they helped to till the small farm, and " hired out " 
among the neighbors. When eighteen, this young- 
est boy left home against the mother's will, to seek 
his fortune ; either his abilities did not fit him or his 
ambition did not soar very high, for he engaged as a 
tow-boy on the Erie Canal. Contracting malaria, he 
went home, and a long illness followed. In conva- 
lescence, his wise mother did not try to coerce his 
desire to return to the tow-path, but by gentle per- 
suasions gained his consent to take three months' 
schooling at Hiram, until he had gained his full 
strength. His mind seemed to open and expand at 
once, the schooling developed powers he did not 
know that he possessed. 

Life on the canal boat was not quite so alluring, 
and he was ready to accede to his mother's pleadings 
that he should try to acquire an education. In her 
straitened circumstances, she could do no more than 
advise. His splendid physique fitted him to bear 
bodily and mental strain, and he must work his own 
way. For years, life was a season of unintermitted 
toil, in which he managed to earn his daily bread, 
master the languages, science, literature, fine arts, 
and win a girl's heart. 

There were lovers' quarrels, which sometimes 
threatened that the pair would walk in opposite 
paths, yet no sooner did he graduate from Williams 



4IO MRS. GARFIELD. 

College than they united their fortunes upon the 
meagre salary of a professor of the little academy at 
Hiram. He joined a sect called Disciples or Camp- 
bellites and often officiated as preacher in their 
chapel. 

At the beginning of the Civil War, he offered his 
services and was commissioned lieutenant-colonel 
of the Forty-second Ohio Volunteers. His regiment 
did good service in Kentucky under General Buell 
but it was at Chickamauga that Garfield won his 
military glory and for his services was promoted to 
the rank of major-general. By rigid economy he had 
saved eight hundred dollars, with which he pur- 
chased a little cottage for his wife and the children 
who had begun to cluster about his hearth. Once, 
when one, whom they called Little Trot, was lying 
very ill, he went home and was in time to hear her 
last sigh, lay her in the village churchyard, and place 
a stone with the inscription, 

LITTLE TROT, 

She Wears the Crown Without the Conflict. 

While in the field. General Garfield was elected 
to Congress, and at Lincoln's urgent request, re- 
signed his commission and took his seat. He was 
returned again and again, until in 1880, he was 
chosen United States senator from Ohio. In the 
small, quiet home at Washington, General and Mrs. 



MRS. GARFIELD. 4I I 

Garfield had a circle of their own, from the more 
cultured class of society, but were unknown in the 
fashionable world. 

In the Republican Convention of 1880, at Chicago, 
there were three prominent candidates ; Grant for a 
third term, Sherman, and Blaine. Garfield attended 
as the pledged supporter of Sherman. It was whis- 
pered in advance, that while ostensibly acting for 
Sherman, he would work for his own nomination, 
and that the Blaine supporters would forsake their 
favorite and wheel into line for him ; were he but 
led out as a " dark horse," he could be his own 
groom and distance his competitors. 

Though an able and fervid orator, his speech for 
Sherman was called a cold and studied eulogium ; at 
the close he asked : " What do we want } " and then 
paused. A clear voice rang out " We want Gar- 
field," and Garfield it was. 

Conkling led the forces for Grant ; ballot after 
ballot was called, and as the famous three hundred 
and six could neither add to nor diminish their num- 
ber, he was asked to allow his name to be used. 
The man was indignant, would, he said, rather have 
his right arm torn away than work for himself when 
he was pledged to Grant. 

Grant and Conkling faithfully supported the nom- 
inee of the party, who was elected by a bare majority. 
The imposing inaugural ceremonies were conducted 



412 MRS. GARFIELD. 

with martial precision by General Sherman, but the 
day proved to be cold and stormy. 

The President looked jaded and worn, but his 
address was giv^en in clear, ringing tones ; he rever- 
ently took the oath of office, then turned and kissed 
^ his happy mother, who was the first mother to wit- 
ness the inauguration of a son. At the ball in the 
evening, Mrs. Garfield made a very pleasant impres- 
sion by her quiet, ladylike manners and appropriate 
handsome dress of heliotrope satin, trimmed with 
rich lace, a bunch of pansies in her corsage, and no 
jewelry. 

Under Mr. Hayes's administration, the country 
prospered, and the public debt was greatly dimin- 
ished, but the belief that fraud had been used in the 
election made the opposite party sullen and disposed 
to cavil at the President's well-meant efforts ; now a 
new era had dawned, the cloud was lifted, and high 
expectations were formed of the success of this ad- 
ministration. Yet the President seemed to antago- 
nize his fi lends from the beginning. The Grant 
faction carped over the selection of the Secretary 
of State ; fierce discussions arose in the exposure 
of the Star Route scandal, which was said to have 
been designed to throw an especial reproach upon 
the Grant and Hayes administrations. According 
to the rules of courtesy recognized among politi- 
cians, senators are consulted, if not allowed to con- 



MRS. GARFIELD. 413 

trol the appointments in their own States. It was 
said by the aggrieved, that the President had 
expressly stated that the New York nominees 
should be submitted to the vice-president and the 
senators from that State. The man who was the 
most obnoxious to those gentlemen was selected for 
the Collector of the port of New York, and the 
minor offices were given to men who were objection- 
able to them. 

The senators, Conkling and Piatt, resigned and 
went home ; this raised an adverse faction in the 
ranks of the Empire State. The President was com- 
petent to run the wheels of government, but he 
evidently had no idea of oiling the machinery. 

In Mrs. Garfield's short occupancy of the White 
House, she showed a great deal of character, re- 
pelled any patronizing attempts to direct her move- 
ments. She was averse to publicity, reticent, retir- 
ing, and discreet ; the President would sometimes 
say he never haa to explain away any words of his 
wife. She did not frown upon the restoration of the 
billiard table, nor upon the glass of wine, in which 
her husband temperately indulged at dinner, and set 
before his friends. Desirous to fulfil the social 
duties of her station, she began with frequent recep- 
tions, but she was a woman of too fine a fibre for 
the political world. For months she had been under 
a mental strain, campaign stories — maybe, colored 



414 MRS. GARFIELD. 

to suit the opposition — had for her a barbed point ; 
were there a skeleton in her household, she was one 
who would rather die than make a public display. 
She possessed a complete mastery of politics, and 
the discordant elements of the government, so early 
displayed, probably cost her more anxiety than they 
would a franker or less-controlled woman. In a few 
weeks she fell ill, and for a time the illness boded a 
fatal result. When convalescent she went to Long 
Branch. 

Henceforward, politicians might wrangle and toss 
about the apple of discord, and it would be nothing 
to her ; crowds might throng the Executive Man- 
sion, but never again would she stand in her quiet, 
self-possessed way to take them by the hand and 
give them her sweet-toned greeting, yet the *' coming 
events cast no shadow before." 

Early in July, the President, more jaded and worn 
than upon that wet, March morning, when he had 
assumed his heavy responsibilities, thought to put 
care and trouble behind him ; promised himself a 
real holiday trip. With a party of friends he was 
to travel North, add his restored wife to the party, 
make a sort of royal progress and at Williamstown 
receive the honors that his Alma Mater was ready to 
bestow on her favorite son, who had so indefatigably 
worked his way to the highest place. 

Alas, the dreadful shadow was creeping on apace ! 



MRS. GARFIELD. 415 

He had been spared once, though he knew it 
not, because he had his wife beside him, — now the 
miserable assassin saw nothing to prompt his heart 
to pity, and the fatal bullets were fired in the station 
of the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad. It was so 
unexpected, so quick over, that Mr. Blaine, who was 
with him, could not for a moment comprehend what 
had happened. The rest of the party were already 
in the cars, and when one came and said the Presi- 
dent was shot, refused to believe it. The wounded 
man, writhing in pain was slowly borne back to the 
White House which he had so gayly quitted half an 
hour before. 

Mrs. Garfield's trunks were packed and strapped, 
and as she was weaving pleasant fancies of the com- 
ing journey, the fatal message came over the wires. 
A special express car was placed at her service, and 
she sped over the weary miles, not knowing if her 
husband, the father of her children, were dead or 
alive. The suffering man lay listening to every 
sound, and when her carriage drove to the door, 
with a long sigh of relief, he said, "It is my wife." 
In another moment Jim and Crete, as they familiarly 
called each other, were face to face. Her long vigil 
of watching him going step by step into a martyr's 
grave began. Then and ever after, — to the days 
when in the funeral train she looked from the 
window with drawn-up blinds upon the people, — 



4l6 MRS. GARFIELD, 

her fortitude was something marvellous. Every 
paper told of her wonderful devotion, but woman 
and devotion are synonymous terms. A thought- 
less, giddy wife would try to stand at her post 
at such a time, yet a weak woman would sink and 
give way under such tragic circumstances. 

The solemnity of the time hushed the feuds of 
the politicians ; though there were those so base- 
natured, if not baseborn, as to impute a feeling of 
exultation to the man who would profit by the 
dastardly deed of the assassin ; for the sufferer 
every heart throbbed with pity ; those who had 
criticised and censured spoke not at all, or spoke 
only to praise. 

Before the tragedy, the proud old mother, affec- 
tionately called ''Mother Garfield" by the people, 
had gone to Ohio with the younger children ; after 
the wires had flashed the terrible news, the son, by 
a painful effort, wrote a note with his own hand, 
breathing hope and confidence. The physicians had 
said there was one chance, and he had bravely said : 
" I will take that chance ; I am not afraid to die, 
but I will try to live." 

For a time the reports were encouraging, and 
when the journey was planned to catch the sea 
breezes, there was a spirit of hopefulness throughout 
the land. The bulletins were more favorable than 
the condition of the President warranted. One Sep- 



MRS. GARFIELD. 417 

tember night, people were awakened from their first 
sleep by the tolling of bells, which told that the 
sufferer, by a singular coincidence, had gone to his 
rest on the eighteenth anniversary of the battle of 
Chickamauga. '' Mother Garfield," weighted with age, 
slept on, and a granddaughter gently broke the news 
to her in the morning. An autopsy was held which 
showed that the diagnosis had been wrong, but 
showed the wound was mortal, so it didn't much 
matter. 

Masters Harry and James, Mrs. Garfield's elder 
sons, were at Williams College ; the first hastened 
to Elberon, and the other lay ill of malarial fever. 
From the sea, they took the dead President to Wash- 
ington, and laid him beneath the dome of the Cap- 
itol, the scene of his triumph six months before. 
There was a pompous funeral, and the sad cortege 
started for the shores of Lake Erie., where, at Cleve- 
land, dust was committed to dust. 

The American people were very liberal to the 
family of the martyred dead. It was proposed to 
raise two hundred thousand dollars for their benefit, 
but the sum rolled up to nearly double that amount. 
Congress voted the life pension of five thousand 
a year, granted the widows of presidents. 

Mrs. Garfield bought a house on Euclid Avenue, 
Cleveland, where the family lived for a time ; after- 
ward, she went abroad with her only daughter, Miss 



4l8 MRS. GARFIELD. 

Molly. Satisfied with travel, they settled quietly at 
Bournemouth, where they received a good deal of 
attention in a quiet way from the English upper 
classes, but true to herself, Mrs. Garfield sought no 
favors. 

Upon their return to America, they settled in the 
homestead at Mentor, where they are said to be 
very exclusive ; so much so, they are unpopular out- 
side their own small circle, which arises, probably, 
from Mrs. Garfield's dislike to have her private 
affairs discussed by the public. 

On the fourteenth of June of the present year, 
there was a double wedding celebrated in the 
house. Miss Molly wore the orange blossoms, and 
plighted her troth to J. Stanley Brown, so promi- 
nent during the campaign that ended in Garfield's 
election, and the troublous political and bloody epi- 
sodes that followed. Miss Belle Mason wore the 
orange blossoms for Harry Garfield, who has formed 
a partnership at Cleveland with his brother James, 
as Garfield and Garfield, attorneys-at-law. 

The murderer had a trial which stretched through 
three weary months. It would be hard to tell why 
it was so spun out — all sorts of base motives were 
imputed to the lawyers who had the matter in hand. 
When the decision came to twelve men from the 
rank and file, who neither knew nor wanted to 
know, a quibble of law, they pronounced the wretch 



MRS. GARFIELD. 4I9 

guilty, and didn't recommend him to mercy. He 
soon suffered the full penalty of the law he had so 
wantonly broken. 

A university in Kansas took the name of the 
martyred president, and recently, Mrs. Garfield has 
generously and gracefully donated it ten thousand 
dollars. 



MRS. ARTHUR. 

Chester Alan Arthur was the fourth President, 
for whose occupancy of the Executive Mansion, death 
had swung open the door ; he was also the fourth to 
enter in without a legitimate mistress in his train, 
because that skeleton guest had crossed the threshold 
of his home and passed away with the immortal part 
of the woman he had chosen to be his wedded wife. 
He still wore black badges in her memory, and the 
great columns of the porch of the mansion were 
draped in mourning for the man, who, only a few 
months before, had come flushed with natural pride 
and ambition, — had been the mark of an assassin, 
and had passed away with the martyr's crown of suf- 
fering. 

General Arthur repeated the oath of office in the 
Capitol, beneath whose dome the dead man lay. He 
had looked his mighty responsibilities in the face, 
and shrank from them ; the circumstances were 
enough to stifle pride and ambition in any man, but 
only those who knew General Arthur could realize 
the depth of his sorrow. For months he had been 
watched and scrutinized, and no man could say he 

420 



MRS. ARTHUR. 421 

had acted unbecomingly in the trying position in 
which he had been placed. 

There had been a political feud between himself 
and the stricken man, but he, like other oppo- 
nents, had forgotten politics, and wished that he 
might be one to stand and minister to the suf- 
ferer, and when the good news came that the 
chances were in favor of recovery, no one rejoiced 
as he did. 

Chester Alan Arthur was the oldest son of the 
Rev. Dr. Wm. Arthur, a learned and cultured man 
of Irish birth, and of the Baptist persuasion. There 
was a large family of children, and the means were 
narrow. The boy inherited the literary tastes and 
studious habits of the father, and under his guidance, 
prepared for college and entered Union, New York. 
Upon graduation, the first six of a class of one hun- 
dred and two received an especial honor, and Arthur 
was one of the six. He entered Ballston Law 
School ; there, as in his college course, he taught 
some months in the year for his maintenance. Like 
Garfield he was a self-made man, the architect of 
his own fortune, but he had the advantage of having 
been bred in a cultured home. 

By the strictest economy, he laid by five hundred 
dollars, went to New York, and entered the office of 
a distinguished lawyer as a student, and was soon 
admitted to the bar. If he were not what was termed 



422 MRS. ARTHUR. 

a rabid Abolitionist, he won favor by defending 
negroes, and always with success. 

In the winter of 1858, there appeared in the upper 
circles of New York society, a young girl from Vir- 
ginia, just out of her teens. She was called the 
beautiful Miss Herndon with the marvellous voice. 
Aside from her personal attractions, she was the 
object of especial interest, as being the daughter 
of Lieutenant-Commander Herndon of the United 
States Navy. When off duty, he was in command 
of the steamship "Central America," running from 
Aspinwall to New York, loaded with passengers, 

*' If the Bermudas let you pass, then look out for 
Hatteras," say the old sailors. As the " Central 
America" steamed up to the dangerous point, a 
terrible storm raged, and she became a perfect wreck. 
Under the admirable discipline of Captain Herndon, 
all the women and children were placed in boats, and 
safely taken on board a vessel lying to for their res- 
cue. He sent his watch and a parting message to 
his wife, but nothing would induce him to leave his 
post so long as a passenger was left on board, and he 
went down with his ship. General Sherman has 
spoken of this grand deed of unselfish devotion 
to duty as the most heroic incident in our naval 
history. 

The officers of the navy placed a monument in the 
grounds of the Naval Academy at Annapohs, to com- 



MRS. ARTHUR. 423 

memorate his heroism ; Virginia, his native state, pre- 
sented a gold medal to his widow, and a large sum of 
money was raised for her benefit. She was the sis- 
ter of Lieutenant Maury of scientific fame. 

Miss Herndon's distinguished birth, her youth, 
beauty, and gift of song, joined to sweet Southern 
manners, made her a central figure in the upper 
circles of New York society. Mr. Arthur was fas- 
tidious and aesthetic in all his tastes — a connoisseur 
of beauty. Meeting this girl in the midst of a 
brilliant throng, she seemed his ideal of woman ; 
hearing her sing completed the charm, and he set 
his heart upon winning her for a wife. 

He had a handsome face and a magnificent 
presence, was easy and courteous in manners, and 
genial in temper ; we cannot tell with what he 
tipped or how he sped his arrows, but we have proof 
that they went to the mark by a ceremony in Calvary 
Church, New York, in which he and Ellen Lewis 
Herndon repeated the vows required in the Epis- 
copal marriage service. 

This was in the autumn of 1859, only a year 
and a half before the fatal shot at Sumter. Mr. 
Arthur at once tendered his services to Governor 
Morgan, who appointed him quartermaster-general 
on his staff. 

The Herndons and the Maurys had drawn their 
swords from the scabbard in the Southern cause. 



424 MRS. ARTHUR. 

Mrs. Arthur was a true Herndon, an ardent lover of 
her native state, a sympathizer in secession, and 
there was a — mother-in-law in Arthur's house. 
Fortunately, love and a dignified sense of what 
was due to a husband kept a divided house from 
falling, but it was well known that the loyalty and 
patriotism of General Arthur were submitted to a 
severe test and nobly stood the strain. 

He scorned gifts; refused contracts, on the ground 
that a public official should be as Caesar's wife, above 
suspicion. His eulogist said : " It is one of the 
proudest records of General Arthur's life that he 
surrendered his position to a successor of hostile 
political faith, to receive from him the highest com- 
pliments for his work, and to return to his profession 
a poorer man than when he assumed office." 

He was twice appointed collector of the port of 
New York, and when removed by President Hayes, 
he and the Secretary of State bore official witness to 
the purity of his acts while in office. 

In 1878, a great grief fell upon Mrs. Arthur. Her 
mother, travelling in Europe, suddenly died at 
Hyeres, France. She went there and brought back 
the remains. The shock and the nervous tension 
caused by her bereavement and her long, sad journey 
impaired her health, and she never fully recovered 
from it. 

In January, 1880, she was attacked by pneumonia, 



MRS. ARTHUR. 425 

and after an illness of three days, died in the prime 
of her beautiful womanhood. A rare and radiant 
soul had passed from earth, and her friends said, 
that, "to win such love as she won in life, to leave 
behind as dear a memory as she has left, is the lot 
of but few mortals." She had been always ready to 
use her glorious voice in the cause of charity, and 
the Mendelssohn Club of New York, with whom she 
had often joined for a benevolent object, begged the 
privilege of singing at her funeral service. 

Her husband fondly cherished her memory, kept 
her room and personal belongings as she left them, 
was scrupulous even to the needle in her work. To 
associate her with his Washington life, he placed a 
memorial window in the church where he wor- 
shipped ; in the White House her picture was hung, 
and daily fresh flowers were placed before it. 

When Garfield received the nomination for the 
presidency in 1880, General Arthur's name was 
tacked to the ticket to placate New York and the 
Grant faction, which had suffered a defeat. Hope of 
Garfield's recovery gradually faded from the minds 
of the people, and there was a state of tense and 
anxious expectancy. From his successor nothing 
was expected, and a great deal w^as feared. 

There was something reassuring in the short in- 
augural, in which he said : "All the noble aspirations 
of my lamented predecessor which found expression 



426 MRS. ARTHUR. 

in his life, the measures devised and suggested dur- 
ing his brief administration, to correct abuses and 
enforce economy, to advance prosperity and promote 
the general welfare, to ensure domestic security, and 
maintain friendly and honorable relations with the 
nations of the earth, — will be garnered in the hearts 
of the people, and it will be my earnest endeavor to 
profit, and to see that the nation shall profit, by his 
example and experience." To a friend he said : 
''My sole ambition is to enjoy the confidence of 
my countrymen." 

Though trained in the strife and turmoil of politi- 
cal life, he showed so dignified a sense of what 
belonged to his high position, that even his friends 
marvelled. The obnoxious collector of New York 
was, to his own astonishment, undisturbed. There 
was nothing indiscreet or aggressive in the adminis- 
tration to rouse the people, who needed rest from the 
strain to which they had been subjected, and his wis- 
dom at this crisis has been accounted the greatest of 
his achievements. 

Not even in the days of Buchanan were the domes- 
tic affairs of the Executive Mansion conducted upon 
a scale more befitting to the head of a great nation. 
The President had a brother in the regular army, 
and a bevy of married sisters. The youngest, Mrs. 
MeElroy, came to preside over the White House and 
assist in the social entertainments. Like Mrs. Mad- 



MRS. ARTHUR. 427 

ison and Miss Lane, she is of Irish and American 
blood, which so often produces beautiful women. She 
has the rare combination of very dark hair and eyes 
and a most delicate complexion. 

She bears a striking personal resemblance to her 
distinguished brother, and has also his high-bred airs, 
culture, and aesthetic tastes. 

The appropriation for the mansion was spent in 
alterations and decorations which add much to its 
attractiveness ; the windows of the dining-room were 
changed to glass doors leading to the conservatory. 
The elegance of the state dinners was a theme for the 
press, and was about all the disaffected could find to 
carp about. One wrote that there was a "parade of 
feasting and ostentation, of public display and pri- 
vate junketing such as the Presidential mansion had 
never known." As a rule, people were pleased that 
an elegant etiquette was maintained, and that nectar 
and ambrosia were served to the nation's guests. 

The most memorable event of the administration 
was the centennial celebration of the surrender at 
Yorktovvn. Delicate management was exercised to 
please the Germans and yet give no offence to the 
French. With President Arthur's o-reat native dio^- 
nity, he had the happy faculty of always doing the 
graceful thing. At the close of the celebration, 
where French, Germans, and Americans had frater- 
nized and enthused over the glorious past, he directed 



428 MRS. ARTHUR. 

that a salute be fired in honor of the British flag, *' in 
recognition of the friendly relations so long and so 
happily subsisting between Great Britain and the 
United States, in the trust and confidence of peace 
and good will between the two countries for all the 
centuries to come, and especially as a mark of the 
profound respect entertained by the American people 
for the illustrious sovereign and gracious lady who 
sits upon the British throne." 

In Arthur's administration, a bill was passed for 
the distribution of the Geneva award, another, for 
returning convicts sent to our shores, and the im- 
portation of contract labor was forbidden. Postage 
was reduced, and the tax upon matches, checks, and 
drafts removed. 

The beautifying and the improvements of the city, 
so magnificently begun by General Grant, were stead- 
ily carried forward. 

The entire administration was so conservative, so 
dignified, that it commanded confidence, and gave an 
impetus to all business interests. 

In the summer of 1883, President Arthur joined the 
Villard excursion party to drive the silver spike. 
Dr. Paul Lindau, the famous foreign journalist, was 
also one of the party, and sent the following des- 
cription to the National Zcituugoi Berlin :/* President 
Arthur makes a good and distinguished impression. 
He possesses a broad, not high, but well-made fore- 



MRS. ARTHUR. 429 

head, a little stumpy nose, wears Jiis mustache and 
side whiskers cropped short, and his chin smooth- 
shaven. His eyes are not very large, but unusually 
animated and of very sympathetic expression. His 
figure is tall and elastic, his carriage faultless. He 
dresses with great care, even with a certain amount 
of coquetry. He looks more like an Englishman of 
noble birth than an American." 

After an administration so deservedly popular, it 
was expected that General Arthur would be the 
Republican nominee in the presidential campaign or 
1884, but the party handed the standard to Maine's 
Plumed Knight; able, eloquent, and magnetic as he 
is admitted to be, the people distrusted him, and he 
brought upon the party the first defeat to which it 
had succumbed for nearly a quarter of a century. 

Upon leaving the Executive Mansion, the tact, 
graciousness, and superb elegance of Mrs. McElroy's 
social sway was recognized in a markedly compliment- 
ary manner by Senator and Mrs. Pendleton, who gave 
a reception which was a very brilliant affair, even in 
Washington. The cabinet to go and the cabinet to 
come, the foreign ministers, officers of the army and 
navy, senators, representatives, and the elite of the 
capital were all bidden, and all came to do honor to 
the lady who for four seasons had right royally enter- 
tained and led society. The retirement of no lady 
since Miss Lane had caused so much regret. 



430 MRS. ARTHUR. 

It has been the ambition of every President, save 
Washington, who always stands alone, to serve a 
second term, more particularly of those who have been 
raised to the high position by death. General Arthur 
acted in his usual dignified manner, returned to his 
home and resumed the practice of his profession, but 
he was comparatively young, sensitive, and proud ; 
the descent from being one of the greatest potentates 
upon earth to the simple rank of a private citizen, 
added to a morbid sensitiveness lest he had not come 
up to the requirements of his countrymen, destroyed, 
or rather, sapped, the springs of life ; there was noth- 
ing for which to strive, no goal to win, — he had 
touched Ultima Thule. 

Two years from his dethronement, he fell into a 
lingering illness, which ended in death. 

General Arthur's remains were taken to Albany, 
and in Rural Cemetary, laid beside those of his wife 
aud infant son. His son, Alan, is a graduate of 
Princeton and is travelling in Europe. Miss Nelly, 
his daughter, the little maiden so often seen with her 
cousin flitting about the White House, is still a 
school-girl, under the care of her aunt, Mrs. McElroy. 



MRS. CLEVELAND. 

In 1885, a new era dawned upon the United States 
government. For nearly a quarter of a century the 
Republicans had been in power, and had settled 
affairs pretty much in their own way. Big steals, 
even the stealing of the Presidency, and all sorts of 
lesser frauds and corruptions had been charged upon 
them. No one doubted that their opponents had a 
broad foundation for their accusations, yet, the gov- 
ernment had somehow pulled through, and we were 
not only a great nation still, but growing greater. If 
politicians do wrong, they never come to the confes- 
sional, and the accused boldly retaliated by saying the 
Union had gone to pieces when a Democrat guided 
the ship of state, and they had restored it. 

If history were repeating itself by restoring a Dem- 
ocrat to power, so it was in bringing another bache- 
lor as master into the Executive Mansion. The new 
President had made such a flourish in reformina: 
abuses as Mayor of Buffalo, and again upon a more 
stupendous scale as Governor of New York, that upon 
his nomination to the office of Chief Masristrate of 
these United States, we didn't have to ask : Who is 

431 



432 MRS. CLEVELAND. 

Grover Cleveland ? That was one point in his favor. 
It is all very well for a man to be a cock-fighter and 
horse-jockey, to live in a log cabin, to split rails, and 
trot round barefoot, to sew on buttons or to tread the 
towpath, and, after, rise to the Presidency. Ameri- 
can people honor such with all their souls — admit they 
were born great, which is so much better than hav- 
ing greatness thrust upon one ; yet, there is some- 
thing in human nature, call it by what name you will, 
which, with other things being equal, makes one 
more ready to doff the hat to one who is well-born 
and well-bred, one whose forebears held the rank of 
gentlemen. 

When we have pen pictures of the Presidents, we 
are proud of the dignity of Washington, of his aris- 
tocratic ways ; of the courtliness of Buchanan ; of 
the elegance of Van Buren and of Arthur. There is 
a sort of pathos in the admiration which the manners 
of the former roused in the great Lincoln ; born awk- 
ward, trained in, and used only to rough western man- 
ners, he exclaimed : " Why, he is enough to charm 
the birds from the trees ! " 

In the earlier days of the Republic, the clergy 
exacted and received reverence ; either we, as a 
people, have less reverence, or they have developed 
so many who keep busy with affairs outside the Mas- 
ter's business, to which they are consecrated, that 
they have somewhat gone down in the scale ; yet, 



MRS. CLEVELAND. 433 

with all this falling off, both in people and ministers, 
such aristocracy as we admit of, they belong to. 

Grover Cleveland, like Arthur, is the son of a cler- 
gyman. His family have been steeped in the minis- 
try back to the days when the- first came from Eng- 
land, which was nearly two centuries before our Pres- 
ident was born. They have been a shifty race in 
their faith, or rather creeds. Dr. Aaron Cleveland 
came as a minister of the established Church of Eno-- 
land, was a friend of Franklin, was nursed in his house 
through a lingering illness, and died there. Frank- 
lin wrote his obituary, which stated, among many 
good things, that he was indefatigable in his calling. 
Each successive generation has turned out ministers, 
the earlier ones j--ined the ranks of the Congregation- 
alists, the present has veered round to the Presby- 
terians. A city missionary of Boston, so well known 
as Father Cleveland, whose life nearly rounded out a 
century, was a great-uncle of the President. His 
daughter married Dr. Cox, a distinguished clergy- 
man of New York city, which brought that branch of 
the family back to the Episcopal Church, and their 
son became bishop of Western New York. The 
President's father married an Irish girl, which inter- 
mixture of races so often produces beautiful women 
and remarkable men.- 

Country ministers and poverty, or rather lack of 
worldly wealth, usually go hand in hand, and this 



434 ^RS. CLEVELAND. 

family was no exception, but the poor man's bless- 
ing was showered upon it and nine little ones clus- 
tered about the domestic hearth of the parsonage. 
The eldest embraced the family calling, and has a 
parish in a New York country village ; a daughter 
married a minister, and the pair are missionaries in 
Ceylon. 

The husband and father of the family suddenly 
died, when Grover Cleveland was sixteen. No hope 
of college life now ; henceforth he must make his 
own way, and help the others make theirs. For a 
year he was a bookkeeper in New York City, At 
sixteen, without means, he had broader views of life 
than a clerkship. The great West seemed to be the 
field to make one's fortune, and he had plenty of 
energy and pluck. Cleveland, Ohio, was almost the 
extreme limit of civilization ; borrowing twenty-five 
dollars from a friend of his father, he fixed upon that 
little, rising city as his goal. Going by the way of 
Buffalo, he visited an uncle, and unfolded his plans, 
which were to culminate in a profession ; law rather 
than divinity was the bent of his mind. The uncle 
was intent on some literary work, in which he saw 
the boy had calibre enough to assist. He promised 
him help in his chosen career, and induced him to go 
no farther. 

At twenty-two, he was admitted to the bar. 
Clients were comino:, and success was dawnin^^, 



MRS. CLEVELAND. 435 

when the South made its grand fiasco. His mother 
had three sons ; no widow was asked to give all her 
sons ; none asked for an only son. In a family con- 
clave, it was amicably settled that the young lawyer 
should be the one to abide at home ; maybe, because 
he could be of more material help than his brothers. 
When the call came for " three hundred thousand 
more," he didn't stand upon his rights as being the 
widow's stay, but hired a substitute, for which he had 
to borrow the money. 

His firmness, straightforward uprightness, and 
reform flourishes as mayor and governor, pointed 
him out as one to whom it would be safe to give 
a wider field for his peculiar talents ; thus he rose 
to the Presidency. Men of his party settled down 
in the faith that honesty, not on Franklin's policy 
plan, but because it is right, was to be maintained. 
TJiis did not matter to the fashionable society class 
of the capital, who were all agog as to what was 
to be the regime of the White House. Arthur 
had carried it on in a manner so agreeable and 
befitting — by gracious ways and courtly manners 
had kept up such a flutter of excitement in the 
bosoms of mammas with daughters, maidens, widows, 
and spinsters, that they were ready to look askance 
upon this man, who shunned women, and was intent 
only upon business — had won his way to fame and 
greatness by putting a veto stamp on steals and swin- 



436 MRS. CLEVELAND. 

dies. It didn't sound interesting, and looked as if 
the White House were to be made over to the men. 

Each inauguration becomes more imposing than 
the one which had gone before, and each one is at- 
tended by a larger number of people ; but in these 
days of hotel palaces, the beds are equal to the 
heads. General Arthur escorted the President-elect 
in his own carriage. 

The passing by the Senate, the signing by the 
President, and the announcing to the assembled mul- 
titude that the great soldier lying, dying, at Mount 
MacGregor was again a general in the army, was re- 
ceived with tumultuous cheers, and formed -the most 
dramatic incident of the day ; it was gracefully timed 
by General Arthur. 

It was a mild spring day and the sun shone 
brightly as Mr. Cleveland stepped to his place and, 
almost without notes, delivered his inaugural in clear, 
ringing tones. For the taking of his oath, he had 
brought a little, time-worn Bible, which had been 
given him by his mother. In his solemn earnestness 
to preserve the Constitution, so help him God, he had 
a reverent, superstitious feeling that if his oath were 
taken upon that book, he couldn't swerve from the 
right. 

His brother and sisters were present, and when a 
lady asked one how she preserved her composure, 
she said she conjugated a Greek verb ; well, any one 



MRS. CLEVELAND. 



437 



who has tried to do that thing, can testify that it will 
crush emotion, as to do it successfully one must at- 
tend strictly to business. 

It was soon learned that Miss Rose Elizabeth 
Cleveland, of Greek verb fame, the youngest of the 
nine Holland Patent Clevelands, a teacher, lecturer, 
and an authoress, was to preside over the hospitali- 
ties of the White House. 

Her life had been too serious and practical to fit 
her for the fashionable vortex of the capital, but 
she is a lady, has strong individuality, good conver- 
sational powers, and is far from being commonplace. 
She took care to keep up the cuisine, the floral 
decorations, and the entertainments. She held 
weekly receptions and gave frequent lunch parties, 
at which under her lead, there was much brilliant 
talk and sparkling wit. 

The temperance people thought to run the house 
a la Mrs. Hayes. They laid their first parallel, but 
were met by such quiet dignity, they never began a 
second. At her own lunches no wine was served, 
but for her brother's guests she had too much good 
sense to interfere or he had too much to allow it ; 
not knowing their domestic status, we will say that 
it was the good sense and the good taste of both to 
conform to society usages in the Executive Mansion. 

Miss Cleveland knew what the public did not 
know — knew that her own reign was to be short — 



43^ MRS. CLEVELAND. 

that a young girl in Europe, " the sweetest in the 
world," she called her, was coming to reign as 
legitimate mistress over the White House. 

In the years gone by, when the President had 
been only a city lawyer, he had had a partner who 
was a genial, generous, whole-souled, companionable 
man, and his handsome wife had charming manners. 
Many an hour had the President whiled away in 
their hospitable home. There was a blue-eyed, viva- 
cious little daughter who often climbed upon his 
knee, and called him Uncle Cleve, — to-day she calls 
him Mr. President. 

At a time when mother and child were away on a 
visit, Mr. Folsom met with a fatal accident. The 
tender and sympathetic nature of the President 
made him assiduous in his attentions to lighten 
the afifliction and attend to their interests. 

The girl had been taught in Madame Brecker's 
kindergarten, the Central School, Buffalo, and after- 
wards went to the High School at Medina, where 
her mother had gone upon the death of her husband. 

The President had dropped Stephen from his 
name because it was too long, and this school-girl 
had added Clara (not exactly euphonistic) to hers, 
because it was too short and, being entered upon 
the school records as Frank, often got transferred 
into the boys' list. She entered the Sophomore 
class of Wells College upon the merits of her school 



MRS. CLEVELAND. 439 

certificates. Every week came a hamper of flowers 
from the gubernatorial mansion at Albany, and* upon 
her graduation, from the conservatories of the White 
House. 

The interest and fondness of the President for 
the beautiful Miss Folsom was well known. She 
stood with her mother in the group behind him on 
the day he was officially notified of his nomination ; 
the two also spent a few days at the Executive 
Mansion after the inauguration. It seems as if the 
social world were a little stupid in interpreting the 
signs of the times, but when a man lives nearly half 
a century without wedding, he almost rises beyond 
the suspicion of matrimonial intent. 

The first rumor of the real state of things was by 
a telegram sent from Washington the evening Miss 
Folsom was about to sail for Europe. It was not so 
ambiguously worded but what it could be seen that 
it was indited by the little god. The unlucky wight 
of an operator had a mania for autographs, and was 
in the habit of cutting off names and preserving the 
messages. This one was so fraught with interest, 
that, under the promises of never telling, he showed 
it to his wife and landlady. Afterwards, the two 
women quarrelled, as women who live together, 
sometimes will. The operator and wife sought 
another home. In the bosom of the landlady 
burned not only anger, but the meaner passion — 



440 MRS. CLEVELAND. 

revenge. She went to the telegraph office and told 
the story she had promised to keep. Secrecy is the 
strict rule of the company, and the man was dis- 
charged. The story got into the newspapers and 
caused a ripple of excitement, but the lady was gone 
and there was nothing to keep it alive. It was soon 
looked upon as a canard invented by a reporter to 
make himself interesting. 

Now and then came a rumor from Paris that there 
was a beautiful trousseau preparing for Miss Folsom, 
and that it was to be worn in the Wnite House. If 
she were the fiancee of the President, Minister 
McLane thought it incumbent upon him to do 
her honor, but the girl wouldn't be lionized in 
advance, and only went about in a quiet way to 
see sights and do her dainty shopping. 

In May she sailed for America. Rumors had 
thickened as to the President's intentions, and when 
the steamer was due, his private secretary, Colonel 
Lament, came and outwitted the newspaper men by 
quietly taking the party on board a little steamer 
held in readiness for the purpose. 

Memorial Day followed, and the President went to 
New York, ostensibly, to listen to dirges ; well, the 
dirges weren't neglected, but there seemed to be 
marriage bells tinkling in the air. Once, Gilmore's 
Band played Mendelssohn's Wedding March, an- 
other struck up ''We've got him on the list," and 



MRS. CLEVELAND. 44I 

a third, *^ For he's going to marry Yum-Yum, Yum- 
Yum." It was seen that the waving of a little 
handkerchief took the solemnity inspired by the work 
in hand, from the President's face. Yet, there was 
an air of secrecy which hardly seemed befitting in 
the marriage of the Chief Magistrate of these United 
States. Even on Memorial Day, Dr. Sunderland 
who performed the ceremony doubted if there were 
to be a wedding. Well, the President could explain. 

Miss Folsom had a grandfather at P'olsomdale 
whom she called Papa John, who was to give away 
the bride or do whatever Presbyterians do, when one 
of their women joins another clan. 

While she was crossing the Atlantic, he died ; 
what plans had been formed, were all agley. As 
the fiancee of the President, newspaper men would 
make life a burden, and it was resolved that there 
should be an immediate ceremony. With the uncon- 
ventional ideas of a young girl, who is always 
supreme upon the matter of her wedding rites, she 
decided to plight her troth in the White House, 
which has added to the Mansion, so crowded with 
historic interest, its most brilliant annal, made bril- 
liant by the young, beautiful woman who there 
became a bride. 

It was a very private wedding, only the families 
of the bridal pair, and the Cabinet members, with 
their wives, being present. 



442 MRS. CLEVELAND. 

A ring was used, though there had been some 
question as to the propriety of it. Dissenters are 
rising above the old prejudice against a symbol or 
ceremony which was originally introduced by the 
Catholic Church. 

The social world were piqued, and frowned. 
According to their cod^, if the lady came as royal 
brides come to the houses of their lords, nothing but 
a wedding conducted as royalty would conduct it, 
could make the coming, seemly. 

The people would gladly have rung marriage bells 
in honor of the pair, and with bared heads strewn 
roses in their path, as an open barouche wheeled 
them from the front portico of the Executive Man- 
sion. To defraud them even of this small courtesy, 
carriages from the south entrance were sent to all 
points of the compass to cover or conceal their 
departure. 

Mrs. Cleveland's pictures are everywhere, but 
not one does her justice ; the gleam of the eye and 
the radiant smile are wanting. In repose, you say 
she is very pretty ; if she smile, you say she is beau- 
tiful ; if she take you by the hand and give you her 
cordial greeting, you feel for the moment she has 
given you a piece of her heart, and you are very sure 
she has won your own. 

She has a tall, girlish figure, and there is a girlish 
delicacy in her pale, transparent skin, touched with a 



MRS. CLEVELAND. 443 

roseate gleam, her eyes are sapphire blue, fringed 
with lashes so thick and long they look almost black, 
and the eyebrows are heavy, delicately arched, very 
dark, and nearly meet ; the broad, well-formed brow 
stamps her intellectually, and is shaded by fluffy, 
abundant waves of chestnut hair ; her lips are full 
and red, and the artist, Ammi Farnham, declares 
that sWf has the most beautiful mouth ever seen. 

Don't tell us of the need of royal training to fit 
the well-born and well-bred American jrirl for hiofh 
station; if our "first lady" had been born in the 
purple, had come down through centuries of royal 
descent, she could not bear with greater ease, tact 
and graceful dignity the burden of social leadership 
which has fallen upon her. 

Once, in company she stood back for an aged lady 
to pass before her; the lady said, ''The President's 
wife must precede all others." With a fleeting 
blush, and pretty deprecating air, she said, " Must 
I ? " and passed on. A man who had a goose all 
trussed to toss into the Republican oven, sneeringly 
remarked, if she had been **to the manner born," she 
would have known t/m^, without being told. Natu- 
ral high breeding, which inspires reverence for age, 
goes farther than formal, royal etiquette ; only men 
who kept geese to roast took exception. 

If she be, to be compared with the homely, inele- 
gant Queen Charlotte, the prosaic, retiring Queen 



444 MRS. CLEVELAND. 

Adelaide, the haughty, heavy Queen Victoria, the 
only English Queens since the States became inde- 
pendent, where will the honors lie.? In this she does 
not stand alone. Lady Washington was born and 
bred in vice-regal courts, but Mrs. John Adams, 
Mrs. Madison, Mrs. John Quincy Adams, Mrs. Polk, 
Miss Lane and Mrs. Hayes are a galaxy of fair 
women of White Hojse fame who could stand that 
test. 

Mrs. Cleveland, the youngest among the wives of 
the presidents, seems the soul of the administration; 
she has become an integral part of it by her sweet, 
womanly ways, which subdue even the bitterest politi- 
cal opponents ; she has but to show her gracious 
presence and winsome manners to capture every 
heart and bridge every pitfall. 

It is a comparatively easy thing for a beautiful 
woman to captivate men, but to please women is 
quite another thing and requires a different sort of 
talent, something in which a beautiful face is not the 
chief factor. The women do admire her grace and 
beauty, but it is her sincerity, naturalness, and 
cordialty, that has won their hearts. 

One lady, high in the official ranks of the opposi- 
tion, says she feels dreadfully guilty, as if she were 
conspiring to increase the lady's popularity by her 
own open admiration and willing allegiance. 

Mrs. Cleveland laughingly turns from politics ; 



MRS. CLEVELAND. 445 

only reproaches wine-bibbers by her own abstinence ; 
is a religious woman and goes about her duties in a 
gladsome sort of a way, as if the Master's ways were 
ways of pleasantness. 

The President is not magnetic, but he is said to 
possess wonderful tact in dealing with politicians ; 
can refuse those who come for favors and by some 
indefinable power send them away in good humor. 
His administration is noted for vetoing the pensions 
awarded to men who never fired a gun, and to 
women who never had husbands nor sons, off the 
pension rolls. The opposition say all these cases 
involve but a few thousands, and it is not wise to 
use such strictness. Be the matter small or be it 
great, the President refuses to bend to congressional 
pressure — holds to unflinching integrity, and fidelity 
to his constitutional oath. 

The times present nothing which possesses dra- 
matic interest. The Indians and the English are, 
or have been up in arms, as usual in every admin- 
istration. This time it was the Cheyennes and 
Arapahoes in Indian Territory, who complained 
that they were encroached upon and crowded from 
their homes by the cattle-herders. The President 
gave their case thorough investigation, which ended 
in ordering away the cattle-herders. They pleaded 
in vain, and then declared obedience in the pre- 
scribed time was physically impossible. It is no 



44^ MRS. CLEVELAND. 

easier to deal with Cleveland than it used to be 
with Jackson when he believed himself to be in the 
right, though the former may not be so fond of hang- 
ing or of making so much bluster as Old Hickory. 
The presence of General Sheridan and United States 
troops made impossible things look easy to the 
herders. The result is that the Cheyennes and 
Arapahoes are in full possession of all that belongs 
to them.. 

The English difficulty is the fisheries in the north- 
east, which is as old as the independence of the 
country, and for which Webster once almost traded 
off Oregon. 

To settle it there has been a treaty on the tapis. 
Both sides claimed it gave them less than their 
rights, which led people to hope honors were easy, 
but Congress decided the highest honors were given 
to the English, which would snatch away ours, and 
they would have none of it. 

If it be right for individuals to do as they would 
be done by — the President takes the ground that 
nations should do as they are done to ; if the Cana- 
dians won't give as well as take, and do it fairly, a 
gulf is to open between us. 

The Canadians claim the Treaty of 1818 gave us 
some good things to which we hold fast, and they 
won't abate a jot of their demands. This has raised a 
war-cloud as big as a man's hand, but it is to be hoped 



MRS. CLEVELAND. 447 

nineteenth-century Christians can dwarf its growth, 
and in time puff it away. 

Mr. Cleveland has entered upon the fourth year of 
his administration, and is the nominee of his party 
for a second term. There are no exciting issues, as 
in the ante-bellum days. The chief difHculty of the 
government is an overflowing treasury, which re- 
quires a revision of the tariff, and this is the hinge 
upon which the campaign is to turn. 

The Republicans tell us, if the Democrats remain 
in power, we shall have free wool — deal England all 
our trump cards and financially ruin our own people ; 
they promise, that if they may guide the ship of 
state, there shall be free whiskey and the status of 
every poor man shall be made better. This has a 
pleasant ring, but the Democrats come to the front 
and deny their statements in toto and tell us their 
fair promises are dishonest tricks to blind the i^no- 
rant and inveigle voters ; they promise on their part, 
that if they may remain in power, we shall dress 
better, have more things for less money, but do insist 
we shall pay squarely for our whiskey 

There is a third party, whose Rozinante is groomed 
to run a quixotic tilt against whiskey. They promise, 
if the people will elect their candidate, to prohibit all 
intoxicating drinks and save them in spite of them- 
selves. 



448 MRS. CLEVELAND. 

The women's party in the field won't count, unless 
they take Mrs. Cleveland for their candidate, — then ! 

Her popularity makes her the most potent factor 
in the administration which the Republicans have to 
face and fight against. 

After the President had been renominated in the 
St. Louis Convention, the mention of her name 
elicited such rounds of applause that men lost their 
heads, just as Adam did once, and for a time it 
looked as if the Old Roman must fold his bandanna, 
and pass from the lists. 

We may be sure that men will toss their hats and 
shout vivas for the Lady of the White House. 

Long may she reign ! 



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